


a piece of cake

by caramelle



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: + rest of the gang of course, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, for once in my fluff ravaged life, not ENTIRELY fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:11:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7068304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelle/pseuds/caramelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He introduces himself while they're waiting. She glances over at him, her piercing blue gaze flicking over his worn blue T-shirt before responding curtly with “Clarke”.  </p><p>He stares at her for a beat — and then scoffs sharply before turning away with a disbelieving shake of his head. </p><p>She bristles.</p><p>They have their first fight within the first ten seconds of being within five feet of each other.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Or, the one where Bellamy and Clarke are the lead actors in a YA film series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably THE slowest burn i've ever written. it's a pretty big leap for me creatively speaking, so i really do hope you enjoy it.
> 
> (also, this IS one of the WIPs i've been going on and on about for the last two months. FINALLY.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

As far as rocky starts go, the first meeting of Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin just about takes the fucking cake.

 

She strides into the waiting room in jeans and a plain black tee with a deep V-neck that dips just low enough to pique his interest, and immediately drops down into a chair right by the door. She doesn’t look at anyone; she doesn’t speak to anyone. She pulls out a clear plastic sheet holding a few sheets of paper, lays it flat on her lap and ignores everyone else for the next fifteen minutes.

 

It’s enough to make him frown, though he’s not quite sure why. Everyone else in the room is making polite conversation — trading audition horror stories and running lines; the usual networking stuff. Sure, there are a couple quiet ones choosing to avoid conversation in favour of staring down at their wrinkled scripts with wide eyes, clutching their papers with white-knuckled fists. But — well, she sure as hell doesn’t look _nervous_.

 

Because it’s a callback, everyone is randomly paired up to speed things along. He springs out of his chair when he’s finally called, though it’s more out of restlessness at having spent the last forty minutes sitting on an uncomfortable piece of plastic than actual excitement. The studio intern looks down at her clipboard before calling a _‘Clarke Griffin’_. His heart sort of sinks a little when the aloof blonde by the door rises out of her chair, perfectly poised with her bag on her shoulder and plastic sheet in hand, like she’d been expecting it.

 

As he’d thought, the plastic sheet contains her copy of the audition sides. Nevertheless, he blinks when he catches a glimpse of it, neatly highlighted with tiny notes in the margins.

 

In an attempt at being cordial, he introduces himself while they’re waiting in a smaller room — more of a square corridor than an actual _room_ , if one’s being finicky. She glances over at him, her piercing blue gaze flicking over his worn blue T-shirt before responding curtly with “Clarke”.

 

He stares at her for a beat — and then scoffs sharply, before turning away with a disbelieving shake of his head.

 

She bristles.

 

They have their first fight within the first ten seconds of being within five feet of each other.

 

The studio intern opens the door to find them glaring daggers at each other, chests heaving. She hesitantly pauses to ask if everything is okay, to which they both bite out _‘fine’_ at the same time.

 

They enter the room, greeting the director and producers, smiling politely and shaking hands one after another as they pretend not to notice when someone has clearly forgotten their name from the previous audition. They find their markings, and wait as another intern fiddles with a video camera set up on a tripod. The director settles back in his chair and calls action.

 

They slip into their characters fluidly, the words on the pages falling from their mouths as easily as if they’d written it themselves. She is ice and fire, folding her arms and widening her stance as she argues with him in a haughty, determined voice — every inch a princess. He is solid earth and steel, shifting his weight to give it back to her as good as he’s getting, infusing his voice with a raw intensity that he hadn’t _quite_ rehearsed as fully as it’s coming out now.

 

Neither one spares the pages in their hands a single glance, too focused on responding to each other to think of anything else.

 

There’s only silence in the room when they’re finished. They only remember to break their locked gazes when a quiet _‘wow’_ sounds from the table — one of the screenwriters, it’s not too clear which.

 

Jaha, the director, surveys them for a few agonising moments, his roughened fingers forming a steeple in front of his unreadable face. Finally, he calls them to the table and hands them each another sheet — barely three-quarters of a page worth of lines — instructing them to give the shorter excerpt a look-through and go again.

 

They glance over the pages and move back to their markings, and Jaha calls action again. Bellamy swallows the sudden surge of nerves and looks up to focus on clear blue eyes, reading off the first line of the new scene with renewed confidence.

 

It’s not as smooth as the first one, but the sensation pulsing through his veins is the exact same — a sort of buzzing, insistent humming just under his skin; almost a kind of high. He looks into Clarke’s unyielding eyes, catching a definite edge of stubbornness to her voice as she delivers the last line — _‘We’ll figure something out’_ — and before he knows it, he’s responding, huffing a rough, sardonic laugh and shaking his head, the hard set of his shoulders softening as his gaze returns to her — _‘Well, can we figure it out later?’_

 

Something freezes in his gut when he realises what he’s done — _stupid, stupid! You’re here to **say** the lines, not make them up!_ — but then Clarke’s lips curve gently, her expression melting seamlessly into something soft and patient and understanding. _“Whenever you’re ready,”_ she says, looking up at him in a way that suddenly makes him hyper-aware of how _close_ they’re standing.

 

This time, he nearly blacks out from the intensity of the silence.

 

Suddenly, the entire table is clapping furiously. The girl with the clipboard looks like she’s just seen an actual angel, and Jaha’s approving gaze is roving slowly over them both, his face set with an air of smug _knowing_. The executive producer, Kane, looks like he could adopt or kiss them both and be equally, ridiculously happy with either alternative.

 

Bellamy gets the call three days later, and Octavia nearly bursts his eardrums with her excited shriek, throwing her arms around his neck excitedly.

 

Clarke gets the call five minutes later, and immediately sends her mother a clipped text message informing her that her daughter will not be returning home as planned.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first table read is sort of one giant blur.

 

They’re introduced (again) to the director, screenwriters, producers and a number of other people whose names and jobs they forget almost immediately.

 

They avoid each other as much as possible, exchanging small talk with their fellow cast members and making their best effort at getting to know the people with whom they will be spending most of their waking hours with for the next six months.

 

Bellamy is surprised to find that he’s reasonably comfortable in the company of Nathan Miller and Raven Reyes, both of whom seem to be only capable of speaking exclusively in teasing jabs, sci-fi blockbuster references and smirking comebacks.

 

Clarke somehow acquires herself two shadows by the names of Jasper Jordan and Monty Green, and even finds herself laughing once or twice at their childlike antics.

 

The remaining member of the core cast, Harper, already seems to be fast friends with everybody, cheerfully addressing every individual by name, even the bigwigs’ assistants. Clarke respects her instantly. Bellamy can’t decide if he’s more intimidated or impressed.

 

They barely look each other’s way, not even when they’re sliding into their assigned seats beside each other, uncapping bottles of water and flipping through their scripts for last checks.

 

They spend the next two hours speaking to each other only through their characters.

 

When they’re finally done, the entire room applauds, and the cast exchange tentative glances with varying combinations of relief and nervous excitement. Bellamy bares his teeth in a way he really hopes at least _appears_ to be a grin, and clamps down the urge to pop the crick that’s been gnawing at the back of his neck since page thirty-two. Clarke instantly disappears from the table the second Jaha dismisses them, darting across the room to catch hold of Kane for a quick question or two.

 

Later, Bellamy glances up automatically from his conversation with Monty as a blonde head bobs past the other boy. He forces himself not to watch her, and blinks hard, focusing harder on Monty’s moving lips instead.

 

Clarke smiles politely as Raven tells her a joke about one of the scenes. The expression dries up on her face as the other girl laughingly mentions that _‘Blake and I DIED when Miller told us that one!’_ She summons up a passable chuckle, and refuses to look over at Bellamy.

  

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Stunt training starts the week after the table read, and things get awkward real quick.

 

Within the first hour of merciless cardio and weights, it becomes glaringly obvious to the entire cast that their leading man and lady aren’t huge fans of… well, each other.

 

The physical trainers split them up so that the boys and girls do most of their workouts separately. This suits Bellamy and Clarke just fine — at least, up until the stunt coordinators get involved. As the leads, they’re in nearly all of each other’s scenes, which also means that most of their stunt work involves each other’s presence and involvement to varying capacities.

 

Bellamy silently growls at himself to not be intimidated by his blonde co-star and her seemingly singular, fiercely all-consuming focus, pushing himself even harder to get every last bit of choreography perfect. He also resolutely ignores the way she pushes her sweat-dampened bangs out of her face, and the way her warm curves feel in his arms when they’re practicing synchronised moves over and over again.

 

Clarke promises herself she won’t be left even an _inch_ behind by her male lead, even if he does have the infinitely superior advantage over her in terms of physical capabilities. She also definitely does not notice the way the fluorescent lights glint off his perspiration-soaked skin, or the way his muscles ripple across his broad shoulders and defined abs whenever he peels off another drenched shirt at the end of another long session.

 

Needless to say, they go out of their way to avoid any and all unnecessary physical contact as far as possible, giving each other as wide a berth as they can manage whenever they’re in the same room.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Rehearsals start about three weeks later, and, by some twisted miracle, it’s a lot harder to stay out of each other’s bubble of personal space than when they were practically sweating into each other’s pores on a large gym mat.

 

Jaha is meticulous and obsessive, and he makes them do anywhere from twenty to thirty variations of each scene. The atmosphere loosens a little when it’s a group scene — mostly because no one seems to be capable of making Raven Reyes cower, not even Thelonius Jaha.

 

Even so, it doesn’t do anything to change the fact that for every group scene, there are two more that call for six consecutive hours of just Bellamy and Clarke in a room, face-to-face and left to the calculating mercies of Jaha’s criticisms and scrutiny.

 

The screenwriters sit in on nearly all the rehearsals, but they are very quiet and very polite and very unobtrusive, and it’s very hard to imagine them coming up with the impassioned, fiery words spoken by these spirited characters. Maya is only a few years older than Clarke, and Jackson is only a few years older than Bellamy, which makes them very young and, therefore, much more insignificant in the scheme of Jaha’s plans.

 

Nevertheless, their talent and the love they have for the script they’ve written shows effortlessly within the first minute of any direct contact with them. Bellamy huffs ever so slightly each time Jaha interrupts either of the writers, and Clarke narrows her sharp gaze whenever Jaha waves a dismissive hand at either of them.

 

Clarke makes a point of asking Maya for her input on discussions about her character, smiling warmly when the other girl lights up and emerges out of her shell, gesturing animatedly as she talks.

 

Bellamy and Jackson linger in the room long after everyone is packed up and gone, having long conversations about his character’s development and motivations, which eventually turn into long conversations about their favourite literary characters and cinematic icons and, for some untraceable reason, UFO conspiracy theories.

 

During one particularly long, gruelling session, Jaha grouses on non-stop about how they’re not giving him _‘enough’_ , and he’s _‘just not seeing the INTENSITY of the MOMENT being adequately EMOTED'_. By the sixteenth consecutive run-through of the same page of dialogue, something snaps inside of Bellamy and he reaches out on sheer impulse, stepping towards — no, _into_ Clarke, sliding one hand along the curve where her neck and jaw meet, his rough voice breaking on the word _‘please_ ’.

 

Jaha breaks the ensuing silence with a slow, theatrical clap, regarding them with that same smug, knowing look from their first audition together. Jackson stares at them like they’re water in a drought, and Maya’s hand is flat on her chest, her mouth hanging open.

 

Later that night, Clarke collapses into bed completely exhausted but unable to fall asleep, too absorbed with trying to will away the tingling sensation still dancing across the skin of her neck.

 

Bellamy curls up on his couch and stares unseeingly down at his weathered copy of the script, trying not to think about whether he’s grateful or resentful that there isn’t a kiss scene in the movie.

 

Jaha adds three more sessions to the last week of rehearsals.

 

They don’t see each other at wardrobe fittings, a scheduling occurrence for which they are both immensely thankful.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Two days before they ship out to Canada for actual filming to begin, the second book of the series their movie is based on hits the shelves. Buzz picks up hot and fast, and the cast finds themselves gaining Instagram and Twitter followers faster than they can say “hashtag”.

 

The studio sets them up in an apartment building not too far from the centre of town. The main cast members — Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, and Miller — are assigned the largest penthouse unit. A slightly smaller unit two floors down is arranged for Jasper, Monty, and Harper.

 

Jasper and Raven drag everyone out the door before they can even get properly unpacked, bubbling over with infectious excitement for their first night out together _‘as roooooomies’_  — a phrase Jasper insists on singing multiple times throughout the night in a high-pitched whine. 

 

Miller gripes and grumbles incessantly about their eager insistence on karaoke, but instantly springs up to lay claim to Biz Markie’s ‘Just A Friend’ without any external prompting. He snatches the mic from a bemused Harper’s hand, his face set with a very severe sort of determination that has Raven in stitches before he even opens his mouth.

 

Everyone is thoroughly bewildered when Monty calmly selects ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and then proceeds to absolutely _kill_ every second of it, complete with some truly impressive displays of falsettos and air guitar moves that result in clamorous cheers from the entire room.

 

Hours later, Clarke closes her bedroom door with a soft click, shaking her head to clear out the image of Bellamy refilling her beer glass despite her not having asked.

 

Bellamy dreams of his blonde co-star singing ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, her husky, melodic voice sliding silky and smooth over the poor quality backing music of the karaoke lounge, her loose hair awash with rippling streaks of flashing pink and blue and red lights.

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

 

As it turns out, filming is fucking _exhausting._

 

Not that they’ve been anticipating a _cakewalk_ or anything. They each have a fair bit of experience under their belts, with guest spots on TV shows and a handful of roles in indie projects each. Nevertheless, they’re both surprised at how little of their time on set is actually spent _acting_.

 

There’s just so much to _do_ — shooting schedule briefings, hair, makeup, wardrobe, script run-throughs and updates, blocking changes, lighting fixes, consultations with Jaha and Kane, rushed asides with Maya and Jackson, last-minute rehearsals of the latest script changes, more briefings for the updated schedule depending on whether the day is running early or late. (Spoiler alert: it’s almost always the latter.)

 

Combine all that with spending hours out in the forest or in some abandoned quarry, the temperature dropping with every minute that brings them closer to sundown, and the frequent flashes of rain interrupting everything and bogging the whole process down, and yeah. It’s most definitely _not_ a fucking cakewalk.

 

They’re in considerably lighter moods whenever Jasper, Monty and Harper are on set too. On their own, Raven and Miller aren’t _quite_ able to feign complete obliviousness to the tension between their other two roommates. With the other three around to fill out the spaces, everyone relaxes a lot more, easily slipping into jokes and ribbing and impromptu rap- or sing-alongs in no time at all. Jasper shows an apparently incurable penchant for breaking out into song whenever there’s a lull in conversation — _‘let me go o-o-on, like I blister in the sun’_ , arms spread out wide, a breathless grin on his face.

 

Miller rubs his face and Harper complains that he’s going to get it stuck in her head _again_ , but by the next minute they’re all singing along, shaking their heads as Raven slings her arm around Monty’s neck and belts along good-naturedly.

 

Midway through shooting a chase scene, Jasper loses his goggles — the single most distinct element of his character’s outfit. Everything is put on hold for another ten minutes while the crew searches high and low in the ongoing drizzle for the missing item.

 

Somehow, Bellamy ends up next to Clarke, under a large umbrella a passing PA hastily shoves at them. They stand side by side, their shoulders just about brushing every few seconds as they actively focus all of their attention on conversation with Harper and Monty.

 

The first AD, Lincoln, locates the missing goggles by craft services, and Jasper sheepishly yells a sincere “sorry” to everyone, lanky arms waving about in wide, earnest arcs.

 

 _Well,_ Bellamy muses silently at the end of the day as he wriggles out of his mud-caked clothes,  _at least today wasn’t so bad._

_How,_ Clarke thinks as she steps out of the shower, _on earth did Jasper lose his goggles? They were right on top of his head the whole time._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Two weeks in, filming is still hard — but it sort of feels like they’ve landed on some kind of mutual understanding.

 

While the camera’s rolling, they are their characters. Everything they do, every word they say to each other, every look they exchange — they pour their all into every last bit of it, knowing that none of it belongs to them.

 

As Bellamy and Clarke, they sit side by side in canvas chairs and pore silently over their scripts, sipping hot coffee or tea from Styrofoam cups.

 

In between shooting scenes and shooting the shit with the rest of the cast, they get called up to do little interviews for promotional behind-the-scenes material that the studio plans to release closer to the movie premiere date.

 

Bellamy sits down for his turn, and answers a few generic questions with the best smile he can muster up despite his looming exhaustion — _I’m so honoured to be a part of this,_ and _this all feels so surreal and amazing_ , and _yes we do most of our own stunts, you bet it’s hard!_

 

The only bit he falters at is when the interviewer asks him about what it’s like working with Clarke Griffin.

 

“Clarke is,” he starts slowly, “unlike any other person I’ve ever met in my life.” He pauses to marshal his thoughts before clearing his throat. “It’s always a bit of a struggle, being strangers who are suddenly thrown into the same space and having to find a way to work together, but Clarke is amazing at what she does, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to play this wonderful role. I—” he hesitates for a split second, and barrels on, “I honestly could not do any of this without her.”

 

The interviewer laughs then, giving a thumbs up to the camera guy to let him know to stop rolling. Bellamy blinks in surprise as she turns back to him, still chuckling. “Wow, did you guys plan that or something?”

 

“Sorry?” he asks, frowning in confusion. Shit, he really hopes he didn’t hear her question wrong.

 

She tilts her head, flashing a sunny grin at him. “That’s exactly what she said about you.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Four weeks in, and they’re having one of those days where ten minutes feels like ten hours. Every little delay makes them both want to scream at the overcast sky. Raven and Miller’s jokes seem more darkly cynical than good-naturedly sarcastic, and with each hour that passes, Jasper and Monty’s antics start to get on even the typically unflappable Harper’s nerves.

 

It really doesn’t help that they’re filming a particularly stunt-heavy scene — her character accidentally falls into a pit, and his character grabs her just in time, pulls her to safety and right into an accidental embrace, throwing them into a moment of intimate eye contact that will inevitably drive their hormonal audience crazy.

 

(At least, they really, _really_ hope it does. It’s a lot harder to make it look like you’re in the throes of passionate infatuation when you’ve done the same gooey, intense look-into-thine-eyes moment a million times over to make sure your director gets his five different angles to the one shot.)

 

It also requires a lot of set-up before the camera can start rolling, which means every attempt at filming one fifteen-second run-fall-save sequence is accompanied by about fifteen minutes of waiting between takes before they’re being yelled at to _‘go again’_ , ‘ _go again’_ , _‘go **again** ’_.

 

Nearly three hours in, Jaha yells cut, displeasure heavy in his tone as he calls for someone to fix something in the background before they continue.

 

“Sorry,” she says as the crew scurries about busily to set up for the next take, the rest of their cast mates waiting a few feet away. “Apparently, you saving my life, like, seventeen fucking times already isn’t enough.”

 

He blinks at her. “That’s okay,” he finally says, glancing around for lack of anything better to do. “I’m assuming saving princesses earns me some kind of reward. Unless Hans Christian Andersen lied.”

 

“Somehow,” she says dryly, mouth quirking sideways, “I don’t think getting to marry this princess is gonna be your idea of a reward.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Somewhere along the way, the lines between “action!” and “cut!” start to blur ever so slightly.

 

Clarke’s hand lingers on Bellamy’s arm just a little longer than it needs to — never more than a half-second or two, and then she’s stepping away to laugh with Raven or Monty over something or other again.

 

Bellamy’s soft smile doesn’t quite leave his face, even when they’re doing nothing but shuffling on the spot in their giant parkas, while camera assistants scramble to replace a scuffed lens.

 

There’s a scene they have to do where their characters are separated, having to communicate urgently through handheld radios. Technically, they don’t _have_ to be on set at the same time as each other. They’re going to be filmed separately, and the footage will be neatly stitched together in editing.

 

Even so, she sticks around set even after she’s wrapped for the day, quietly returning to her chair in an oversized hoodie to observe him work with her meticulously colour-coded script in her lap, the pages crinkled after months of use.

 

It helps a lot more than he had expected, having her physically there. Even though he’d already been prepared for a tougher time — responding to the script supervisor reading Clarke’s lines can’t possibly be the same as responding to _Clarke_ — it ends up feeling a lot more like she’s right there beside him, in front of the camera in full costume, a steady pillar of blazing blue intensity.

 

Two days later, he drives her and Raven to set for them to film Clarke’s part of the walkie-talkie scene, for which Raven’s character is also present. He doesn’t exactly _plan_ it, but before he knows it he’s on set, deep in conversation with Kane as a PA sets his chair up for him.

 

Raven pops up once she’s done with hair and makeup, and gets into position for her part of the scene, where her character works alone on some engineering problem that’s full of words he can barely even spell. It’s a mostly silent scene, with only one proper line for her character. She breezes through it, making the crew laugh here and there with her snarky comments and off-the-cuff antics with the props on the fake worktable.

 

She’s done within twenty minutes, skipping off the crew-swarmed set to come say hi to Kane and mess around with Bellamy for a bit. Clarke arrives ten minutes later, fully in character with braids in her hair and rugged leather clinging to her body. She obediently stands still as Anya fusses with the sleeve of her jacket, nodding occasionally as the sharp-tongued costume designer lectures her on what she can and can’t do while attired as such. He meets her sharp blue gaze dead on, holding it for a second before deliberately flicking his over to Anya with a meaningful scrunch of his nose. She presses her lips together to rein in a smile, blinking innocently when Anya’s glare whips back to her.

 

She and Raven get into position, and everything goes smoothly as can be expected with Jaha’s unsurprising insistence on doing twenty takes of every line before letting everyone move on. It’s well over an hour before Clarke is directed to pick up the little radio, Raven slipping into the background for the rest of the scene.

 

The first five takes are… odd.

 

Clarke seems off-kilter for the first time in nearly two months of being in front of the camera. Bellamy frowns, unsure if Jaha can sense the difference in her voice, the rhythm of her words, the slight stiffness in her shoulders. The man doesn’t exactly say anything, other than frowning calculatively through each take and yelling “Cut! Again!” every time she’s finished.

 

On the sixth take, she doesn’t even get to the end of the scene before Jaha calls cut, the script supervisor starting in surprise beside him. He watches as Jaha leaves his chair, striding purposefully towards Clarke, and before he quite realises what he’s doing, he’s walking towards both of them.

 

Clarke is gnawing on her lip when he reaches them, nodding more to herself than at Jaha.

 

“Hey,” he says, having been left slightly breathless in his haste. “Um, sorry, I know I’m not supposed to—” he falters at Jaha’s curt, expectant expression, and shakes his head resolutely. “Can we— Can I say the lines instead?”

 

Jaha regards him for a long moment, face unreadable, arms folded over his chest.

 

Two minutes later, he’s in between Jaha and the script supervisor, Callie, a copy of the scene in his grasp as hairstylists and makeup artists flit back and forth between Clarke and Raven.

 

“Clear the set,” Jaha calls authoritatively, and the crew disperse promptly in a flurry of powder brushes and hairspray cans. “And… _action!_ ”

 

 _“Princess?”_ Bellamy says, low and urgent. _“You there?”_

Clarke brings the radio up to her mouth, her knuckles tightening on the little black box. Her face is a kaleidoscope, surprise and relief and desperation and worry and joy mixing and melding together within the span of two seconds. _“You’re late,”_ she scolds, a hard edge lining her voice despite the raw emotion on her face.

 

He grins before giving her his next line, and it’s sort of like being on set with her as usual, only she’s not looking at him directly as she responds. They finish the scene, and she tears the radio away from her mouth, whirling round to face Raven as scripted, their gazes locking together in a dramatic silent exchange.

 

In the brief stillness that follows, Bellamy can feel his heart hammering against his ribcage.

 

“And cut!” Jaha’s face shows a definite hint of a smile. “Print it. That’s a wrap on the day. Good work, everybody!”

 

Bellamy blinks at the script supervisor’s kind pat on the back, immediately recovering with a polite smile and nod.

 

Somehow, he ends up on the couch in the girls’ trailer, Raven chattering a mile a minute as Clarke changes out of her costume, hidden behind a large screen.

 

“I mean, seriously,” Raven exclaims loudly, waving a makeup remover-soaked cotton pad in her fingertips. “I’ve never _heard_ of Jaha doing anything less than like two thousand takes of everything. Jaha being happy with just _seven_?” She snorts exaggeratedly, looking over at Clarke as the other girl emerges from behind the screen in her street clothes. “I didn’t even think _that_ universe could exist within the realm of scientific possibility!”

 

“You do realise you’re not _actually_ a rocket scientist, right?” Bellamy asks as she hops off her chair for her turn to change. “You’re not becoming one of those people who thinks they can save lives just because they play a doctor on some CW drama, are you?”

 

Raven scoffs, throwing a clean cotton ball at his head as she passes him on her way to the screen. “Jesus, Blake, learn how to take a fucking _compliment_. You don’t hear _Clarke_ complaining.” She half-yells the last part as she disappears behind the opaque partition.

 

Clarke lays her costume over her chair and looks up to meet his gaze in the lighted mirror, smiling softly.

 

“No, you don’t.”

 

Neither of them is quite sure whether she’s saying it to Raven or him.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The cast gets called in to do a couple days’ worth of photo shoots, which basically just means taking two days off hanging about on an overcrowded set to sit in a room blessedly conditioned to artificially create and circulate air that strikes a safe middle between freezing and sweltering, and try all sorts of stupid tricks to make each other crack up and thoroughly annoy the makeup artists and hairstylists trying to get them looking just the _perfect_ amount of survivalist ragged chic for the promotional posters.

 

Jasper waits until Anya is out of the room to do a surprisingly accurate imitation of the fierce costumer, complete with passive-aggressive eye-rolls and half-snorts, purposely exaggerating whipping of hair that he most certainly does not have, sending everyone into stitches.

 

Clarke and Raven do a remarkably credible a cappella rendition of ‘N****s in Paris’, accompanied by a halfway decent beatbox courtesy of Monty and Miller.

 

Harper uploads the video to Instagram, and slyly reads out a couple of comments fussing excitedly over Bellamy not so subtly rocking out in the background.

 

They do their individual shots, followed by several shots of just Bellamy and Clarke together. It’s easy enough — just a lot of glaring intensely at the camera, or staring off wistfully to the side for a dramatic profile shot. The trick is learning to tune out the colourful commentary from their boisterous cast mates on the sidelines long enough for their (thankfully) patient photographer to get the shot. (If it’d been Anya, they’d all have been kicked out of the room ages ago.)

 

They do a few group shots at the end, though it’s really more out of fun than necessity, everyone crowding together in a tangled, laughing mess in front of their good-natured photographer.

 

The guys do a few exaggerated poses, looking like some kind of post-apocalyptic boy band with their flexed arms and jutted-out chins. The girls waste no time in copying them, and everyone gasps with laughter when Harper does one pose that entails her clutching aggressively at her crotch like she’s an up-and-coming West Coast rapper. Raven and Miller even do a few impressive jump shots, the kind where they strike poses in mid-air that make them look like they’re in a kung fu movie.

 

Over dinner, Clarke shows Bellamy the pictures the rest have posted to Instagram. They laugh at Harper’s post of Jasper and Monty’s valiant attempt to recreate one of Raven and Miller’s fake fighting photos.

 

He scrolls past a couple more, and Clarke’s post shows up. It’s one of those collage things, with a boisterous group shot taking up the lower half of the photo. The top left is a shot of Raven, Jasper and Harper making fake beards for themselves with clips of hair extensions.

 

The top right is a shot of her and Bellamy standing in for their pair photos, taken by someone off to the side. His back is to the camera, and she’s by his side, facing the camera with one hand on his arm. He’s supposed to be looking intensely at her while she looks intensely into the lens. Instead, she’s hamming it up for the camera, pulling a face with her other hand held out, one foot kicked up like she’s a waitress in an eighties rom-com that’s probably set in a diner. His entire face is crinkled in laughter, the upper half of his body already twisting towards her instead of properly facing the blank white backdrop like he’d been directed to, one hand firmly on her waist to steady them both.

 

He rolls his eyes and hands back her phone when she advises him to _‘feel free to download Instagram and join the rest of us in the twenty-first century’_ with a teasing grin and a pointed elbow to his ribs.

 

Despite her jibe, it’s her caption that he’s thinking of as he grins back — _‘why is it SO hard to get a normal family photo? <3’ _

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They head back to work two days later, and suddenly, everything seems to fall into place. Neither of them can quite quantify the feeling. It’s a kid finally learning to write a proper sentence without needing to ask about how to spell that one word. It’s a first-year driver finally feeling confident enough to make a turn without feeling like they’re going to hit something or someone. One minute they think they know what they’re doing, and then something just clicks, and it becomes _okay, wow, I know what I’m doing_. 

 

Trying to become someone else has always been less difficult to do with each other to rely on, but now, all of a sudden, it’s just flat-out _easy_.

 

One afternoon, Raven walks past their trailers, stopping when she spots them sitting together on the steps outside hers.

 

They’re both still in costume, but they’ve removed the heavier outer layers so they can lounge around without getting a verbal lashing from Anya. Clarke is perched on the topmost step, leaning back against the door with a sketchpad in her lap, tracing another world on it with a pencil. Bellamy is a couple steps below, his back pressed to her knees for support as he turns the pages of one of about nineteen tattered paperbacks he’s been steadily sneaking into his trailer.

 

Raven starts towards them, a rousing greeting already rising from the back of her throat; but then she stops, snaps her lips together, and thinks for a second. She lets her eyes rove over the scene for a long moment before slowly turning on her heel, and continuing on her way.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, hope you're enjoying it so far! pretty excited for what else is to come, and it would be really great if you're looking forward to what's next even in the slightest way =) 
> 
> kudos would be amazing if you did like it, and comments would be INCREDIBLE because i really would love to know what you think! 
> 
> (btw, if you're wondering about my [bellarke+ice mechanic fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7057771), another chapter IS coming!)


	2. part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang screw around, get invested in love lives that aren't any of their business, try to be good at their job, and get drunk. Meanwhile, Bellamy and Clarke meet a legend.

 

 

 

 

 

Most days, once hair and makeup and costumes are all done, the cast has a good fifteen minutes or so before they have to be on set.

 

They usually spend that time shooting the shit in someone’s trailer, messing around with stray wigs and making stupid lip-syncing videos for Vine and Instagram.

 

When the weather is particularly nice, they like to go outside, and someone will start drawing hopscotch squares with bits of chalk begged off a crewmember.

 

Sometimes, they’ll take turns to give their overworked AD, Lincoln, a break from running around all day — usually under the guise of asking a series of extensive questions. (So far, Harper has a pretty good lead over the others. Her last turn, she’d started with _“so, what are we having for lunch today”_ and ten minutes later, Lincoln had somehow found himself deep in a discussion about decolonisation.)

 

They like to play improv games when Maya and Jackson are around, making the writers give them random scenarios and turning them into long, extended scenes packed full of running jokes and gags. Sometimes they’ll even have a go at the Irish Drinking Song game from _Whose Line Is It Anyway?_ — though they’ve been trying to avoid that ever since the one about Miller and his beanie made everyone laugh so hard that Jasper actually ripped a few seams in his costume jacket and Harper’s stream of tears half-ruined her makeup.

 

Raven still refuses to apologise for rhyming _‘sense of security’_ with _‘never losing his virginity’_.

 

Sometimes, Bellamy and Clarke will wave the rest ahead so they can spend a few more minutes running lines in one of their trailers.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Ten weeks into filming, Raven starts teasing one of their sound guys, a kid around their age called Murphy.

 

“Look, dude,” she says while things are still being set up, elbowing him sharply. “Just fucking _talk_ to her, at least. Get her number, her Instagram username, _something_.”

 

“Why don’t _you_ talk to her,” he grumbles back. He’s not the sunniest personality in the room, not by a long shot — but for some reason, they find themselves all harbouring a weird liking for his company.

 

(Monty's theory is that _“he’s basically the human version of a cat, see. He only pays attention to you if **he** wants to. It makes us want him to pay attention to us all the more.”_)

 

Raven tosses her ponytail. “Fine.”

 

She immediately takes off towards the crafts table, where a petite girl is laying out assorted pastries on a large tiered plate.

 

“Fuck— _Reyes_ ,” Murphy hisses, but it’s too late. Raven’s already reached the table, grinning as she strikes up conversation with the girl.

 

“Oh,” Miller says when he notices, coming up beside Murphy to survey Reyes across the room. “Bummer, dude.”

 

Murphy frowns, eyes still trained on Raven and the object of his silent affections. “Bummer? What bummer? Why _bummer_?”

 

“Raven has approximately zero chill when it comes to crushes,” Monty informs him, nodding sagely. “Hers, _or_ other people’s.”

 

“After this, I’d say you have about a three percent chance of even _appearing_ cool,” Harper adds, shaking her head slowly.

 

Jasper appears out of nowhere, jauntily strumming a guitar he’s probably found in someone’s trailer. He pauses at the sight of everyone focused on the same thing, wheeling around to see for himself.

 

Without asking for any explanation, Jasper whistles. “You dead, Murph.”

 

Murphy swears sharply under his breath, dropping the cables he’d been sorting and immediately moving towards the table.

 

Less than a minute later, Raven returns to the group, smugly trading high-fives from Jasper and Monty and smirks with Harper and Miller.

 

Behind her, Murphy shoves his hands into his pockets, a sheepish smile on his face as the petite crafts girl — _Emori_ , Raven announces — grins up at him, chattering away.

 

“No, please,” Raven says when Murphy returns, clearly having scored the girl’s number. “Thank me later.”

 

He rolls his eyes, a lopsided smile stretching his mouth wide despite himself. “Fuck you, Reyes.”

 

“ _So_ very welcome,” Raven says, arms spread magnanimously.

 

Bellamy and Clarke arrive just as Murphy’s middle finger goes up.

 

Clarke blinks. “Jasper — is that _my guitar_?”

 

 

 

 

Two weeks later, they’re sprawled out about the living room of the penthouse apartment on their day off when Raven starts crowing at her phone.

 

“Suck it and see, bitches,” she announces, brandishing the device at the rest.

 

It’s an Instagram post from Emori — she and Murphy are officially dating.

 

“You’re a witch,” Harper informs her, passing the phone on to Monty.

 

“You’re a fuckin’ _menace_ ,” Miller corrects, just barely ducking the cushion launched at his head.

 

Bellamy groans, leaning over Clarke’s shoulder to look at the photo.

 

“That’s okay,” she says sweetly, patting his knee with a wicked grin. "You can pay up later."

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A little over three months into principal photography, Bellamy and Clarke finally get their first scene with Dante Wallace.

 

“Dante fucking _Wallace_ ,” Raven breathes in awe over breakfast, staring at them with goggled eyes over their cereal bowls.

 

Since it’s only the climactic final confrontation of the film that actually puts Bellamy and Clarke’s characters in the same room as their villain, most of Mr. Wallace’s scenes have already been completed. As such, this is the first and last day that they will actually _see_ the film legend in action, and actually _be_ a part of that action.

 

(They’re both nervous, okay? It’s _Dante fucking_ _Wallace_.)

 

Miller makes Bellamy swear on Octavia’s _life_ that he will obtain a personalised autograph from Mr. Wallace. “Make it out to Nathan. Or Nate,” he says, before giving an abrupt shake of his head. “What? No, that’s fucking stupid. Make it out to Miller. _Miller_ , okay? M-I-L—”

 

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Clarke says, arching a brow in disbelieving amusement as she pulls a beanie snug over her head. “I think we’ll manage it, Miller, thanks.”

 

They’re called to Mr. Wallace’s trailer fifteen minutes before they’re due on set. The man waves away his makeup artist when the PA leads them in, standing up from his chair to shake both of their hands.

 

“It’s very good to meet you both,” he tells them both, smiling at them in a way that makes Bellamy feel pleased but uncomfortable, in a way that reminds him of how it feels when a teacher suddenly announces that he’s scored top marks in the last pop quiz. “I’ve heard some very intriguing things about the two of you.”

 

“Probably not as much as we’ve heard about you,” Clarke responds with a warm smile, eliciting a delighted laugh from the older man.

 

They make it through about sixteen hours of shooting that day, and both Bellamy and Clarke are caught completely off-guard at how fast the time flies by.

 

This scene is the one where their characters reach what they’ve casually termed _‘peak badassery’_. There’s a lot of movement, and a whole lot of dynamic point-of-view shots. At this point in the movie, their characters are completely in sync with one another, needing no more than half-second glances and brief nods to communicate whole sentiments with each other.

 

It’s incredibly challenging and yet unbelievably fun to portray. It’s also the easiest time both Bellamy and Clarke have ever had with staying in character.

 

There’s an undercurrent charging both their performances — the same one that they’ve both come to rely heavily on over the last few months of shooting. It’s familiar and reassuring, but at the same time, it feels like it’s been amped up to a level that’s even higher than they’ve ever reached.

 

It’s probably thanks to the shared hype of working in front of a goddamn _film legend_ , they jokingly acknowledge in between takes. Dante Wallace is professional and efficient, always ready to go with no more than a split second’s notice, switching easily between sinister villain and experienced, kindly veteran with an approving nod or smile.

 

“I think I rather enjoy playing the villain,” he muses during their late dinner break, which he’d insisted on inviting Bellamy and Clarke back to his trailer for. “Once you’ve played the President of the United States in three Oscar-nominated films, you tend to get bored of being in charge.”

 

“I’d say your character’s pretty in charge here, too,” Clarke observes dryly — a reference to their movie’s villain being an evil king.

 

“Ah, yes,” Wallace agrees cheerfully, “but there’s a significant difference between being in charge of people’s welfare, and being responsible for their destruction. One is much more fun than the other.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Bellamy says with a wry grin. “Definitely sounds like my idea of a good time. Having a few beers, attempted genocide, recreational sports. In that order.”

 

“In that order,” Wallace echoes with a laugh, nodding approvingly.

 

Filming continues, and for the next three hours, all is well — until there’s a moment where Bellamy falters unexpectedly, his mind suddenly going blank instead of providing him with his next line. He starts and stops abruptly, staring wide-eyed at Dante Wallace as a tense silence descends. Neither Clarke nor Dante make a move.

 

Bellamy vaguely catches Jaha shifting out of the corner of his eye, and he starts to back off, to make way for a redo when a pale, leathery hand comes up to halt his movements.

 

“No, no,” Dante says to him, somehow calm _and_ urgent at the same time. Off to the side, Jaha stills. “Keep it here, son. Stay with it.”

 

He gapes for a second, stunned speechless, before blinking rapidly, his face settling back into the fervid frown it had been arranged into just seconds before.

 

 _“So,”_ Dante repeats, features already seamlessly back in place to reform the contemptuous sneer of his character. _“You think you’re the **good**_ _guys, do you?”_

Bellamy meets the older man’s stare dead on, something in his gut tightening as he focuses on the anger and determination, feeding them both into physical expression. _“We’re just trying to save our people.”_

 

Clarke promptly rises to the occasion, stepping forward to deliver her next line with an elevated note of steel, her blue eyes sparking with fierce defiance.

 

They finish the take, and immediately receive a standing ovation from the crew. Dante nods at them. It’s just the one deliberate, purposeful dip of his chin — but somehow, it feels like the biggest accomplishment of their lives.

 

It’s close to one in the morning when Jaha calls it a wrap. He makes a short speech thanking Dante Wallace for his contribution to the film. Everyone on set bursts into raucous applause, and it takes a good few minutes for the crew to get back to their work, starting on the arduous process of cleanup.

 

Bellamy goes up to Dante Wallace to thank him, but Mr. Wallace simply looks at him for a long second before reaching out to grasp him gently by the shoulders, and tell him that he’s _‘got something special, son’_.

 

Dante Wallace then turns to Clarke, taking one of her leather-clad hands in both of his and pressing his worn lips to the back of her knuckles — every inch the respectful gentleman — before pronouncing her _‘lovely as Venus and tough as nails’_ and leaning in with a knowing wink to confide that he’s _‘always preferred it when roses hold on to their thorns’_.

 

Miller cries when Bellamy and Clarke present him with his Dante Wallace autograph, addressed accordingly to “M-I-L-L-E-R”.

 

Raven suddenly breaks out into noisy sobs as Miller cradles his Wallace autograph to his face.

 

It’s quickly revealed that the two of them have single-handedly polished off three bottles of wine over the last four hours.

 

“Oh yeah,” Bellamy grunts as he and Clarke half-carry a passed-out Raven to her bedroom, “this is definitely how I saw this day ending.”

 

“Dante fucking Wallace,” Clarke echoes ruefully, and they exchange wry grins over their roommate’s lolling head.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Three days later, Jasper gets tongue-tied on set.

 

_“We’re crinim— we’re crim— we—”_

“Cut!” Jaha rubs at his temple wearily. “Take five, everyone. Mr. Jordan, drink some water and get that tongue loosened, if you please.”

 

Clarke grimaces, exchanging a frowning glance with Bellamy. Jaha only ever uses surnames when he’s inches away from losing his temper.

 

“Why is it so hard to say the line,” Jasper whines as they pick at the craft services table.

 

“Just say it,” Monty says, nibbling on an oat cookie. “ _We’re criminals, right? So let’s be criminals_. Go.”

 

“ _We’re criminals_ ,” Jasper repeats, nodding. “ _Let’s crimi_ — No. _We’re being_ — _So let’s be crinimals_.”

 

“Nailed it,” Harper says flatly, one brow arched.

 

Clarke takes Jasper out of the warehouse they’re set up in and into the sunshine, and gives him a few deep breathing exercises and tongue twisters to do, making him exaggerate the movements of his mouth.

 

“ _Relax_ ,” Bellamy tells him when they arrive back on set, clapping one hand to the lanky boy’s shoulder. “You got this.”

 

Jasper gets the line right — but Miller ruins the take by breaking out a fist pump, earning him a punch in the arm from Raven and a sympathetic shake of the head from Monty.

 

“Cut,” Jaha says, the first hint of a smile pulling at his lips. “Again.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Three weeks later, Jasper, Monty and Harper celebrate their last day on set and announce that all the cast is going out for drinks.

 

The seven of them tumble over each other into a booth, a laughing tangle of hats and scarves, and Raven orders twenty-one shots of tequila right off the bat.

 

“ _No_ exceptions,” she says as the skeptical waitress flounces away, pointing at Bellamy and Clarke across the table. “We have two whole days off work, and we are going to give these guys a proper fucking send-off.” She finishes with an affectionate nudge to Monty’s arm, leaning into Miller’s shoulder to share a puckish snigger.

 

Clarke quirks a bemused brow, aware of the way Bellamy shifts in his seat beside her. They don’t often drink as much as the rest, but it’s only because they _usually_ have some kind of ungodly call time.

 

“Who said anything about exceptions?” she asks, smirking lazily.

 

The table _‘OHHHs’_ readily and excitedly, and Miller cups his hands round his mouth to announce _“Ch-ch-ch-CHALLENGER”,_ low and booming. Bellamy feigns exasperation at their theatrics, ducking his head to hide the grin.

 

Their shots arrive soon after, but they’re delivered by a different girl.

 

“I just had to see who was signing up for a kickass hangover,” the girl says, setting down two trays with a practiced ease. “Starting off with the Jose? Bold move.”

 

“Thanks, it was mine,” Raven says, leaning over Miller to flash a perfect grin at the girl. “Raven.”

 

“Gina,” the girl replies, smiling instantly in a way Clarke can’t help but envy. She’s never been all that comfortable with first meetings, not like this Gina creature. “Here, if everyone makes it through these alive, the next one’s on me.” She winks, a motion that somehow looks like it’s aimed around the entire booth all at once, and disappears.

 

“Bartender,” Harper notes with interest, her eyes discreetly following Gina as she heads back behind the bar. “Weren’t you a bartender, Bellamy?”

 

“Am,” he corrects immediately, briefly following Harper’s gaze. “I _am_ a bartender. Hopefully not for much longer.”

 

He’s not entirely sure why, but as he says the last bit, he finds himself looking at Clarke. She’s looking at him too, the slightest of flickers in her steady blue gaze.

 

“I’ll drink to that,” Raven says, a wolfish grin splitting her face in two. “Cheers, freaks!”

 

Clarke feels warmth spreading through her insides right after the first shot, though she suspects it has less to do with alcohol and more to do with the way Miller and Harper are already playing some convoluted version of rock-paper-scissors someone had invented their third week on set, and Bellamy is getting up to follow a bouncing Jasper to the jukebox with a fond, exasperated shake of his head, and Raven and Monty are animatedly debating whether there’s any truth to the liquor-before-beer saying.

 

Jasper dives back into his seat — Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star’ starting up over the speakers — and immediately lunges for another shot, breathlessly yelling _“Never Have I Ever!”_

 

Miller passes out the rest of the glasses, shouting a countdown before they toss the alcohol back, all of them hissing in unison at the trail it burns down their throats.

 

They buy a round of beers, because “if we’re going to do this then I think we all want this game to last longer than fifteen minutes,” as Bellamy observes dryly.

 

Raven smugly announces she’s never gotten a grade below a ‘B’, and everyone groans as they take a drink, Clarke throwing a slice of lime at her.

 

Miller matter-of-factly reveals that he’s never had an actual cocktail, at which Raven’s jaw drops in indignation before she resolutely promises to make a margarita convert out of him.

 

Everyone _‘aww’s_ good-naturedly when Monty confesses that he’s never kissed a girl, but Harper raises her bottle in a toast to him, shrugging unconcernedly as she takes a swig.

 

“You _could_ just kiss me or Clarke right now,” Raven offers nonchalantly, sweeping her long brown locks back over her shoulder. “Both of you,” she adds, glancing pointedly at Monty.

 

“You or Clarke? No, thanks,” Harper says flippantly, her lips curving saucily. “Monty and I could do much better than a couple of sevens.”

 

Clarke grins, Bellamy chokes on his beer and Miller instantly loses his shit, doubling over in the booth.

 

Monty clamps a hand over his mouth to cover his helpless giggles. Jasper gasps “oh _no_ she _di’int_!” theatrically, fists slamming down onto the table in his excitement as Raven flicks a couple of beer nuts Harper’s way, failing miserably in her attempt to appear offended.

 

They throw back their third round of shots, and Gina returns to the table as promised, bearing a fresh tray of tequila. “On the house, of course,” she assures them with an easy grin. “Good thing the bartender likes you guys.”

 

“ _Heeey_ , Gina,” Jasper calls eagerly from the other end of the booth, speech already slurred from almost an hour of nonstop drinking. “Bell’my here’s a bart’nder too!” He waves a hand in what he clearly hopes is Bellamy’s direction. Clarke gently catches his fingers before they poke her in the eye and pushes them back over to him, patting them comfortingly.

 

“Thanks, Jasper,” Bellamy replies wryly, raising a conspiratorial brow at Gina. “But we’ve already seen each other at all the meetings.”

 

“We’re unionising next month,” she agrees, her tone equally dry as she grins in return. “Nice to meet you, ‘Bell-my’.”

 

“Bellamy,” he clarifies with a smile. “You too.”

 

Raven cuts in to order a round of margaritas, tragically bemoaning Miller’s lack of cocktail experience.

 

Bellamy tries not to wonder if that’s really Clarke stiffening in her seat, or if he’s just been pressing too close on the crowded bench.

 

They jump right back into Never Have I Ever, and everyone groaningly rolls their eyes when Monty volunteers that he’s never hooked up with a co-worker and Jasper is the only one who doesn’t drink.

 

Bellamy does, however, do a minuscule double take when Clarke raises her bottle for a swig, his mouth falling open in surprise — only because she’s always so goddamn _professional_ and _no-nonsense_ all the time. He quickly recovers though, averting his gaze before she can catch him staring.

 

Somewhere along the way, the juicy reveals start to turn into juicy full-length stories about ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends and one-night stands and weird kinks and being dared to give and/or receive blowjobs in the public restroom of a bar. Bellamy sort of loses track of exactly who it is that confesses to having had a sex dream about Kane.

 

It might be Harper. He’s _reasonably_ sure.

 

Twelve more rounds later, and Jasper and Monty are pretty much unable to sit upright, relying on each other for mutually unreliable support. Miller is basically unable to form any sentence at all, coherent or otherwise.

 

Raven has gone sentimental, alternating between tipsy chortles and tearful sniffles as she reminisces on and on about huddling together for warmth in between takes, stealing bear claws off craft services to stash in their bags and playing Heads Up in each other’s trailers.

 

Clarke is definitely buzzed on tequila and beer, slumping slightly over the table and swaying towards Harper as they snicker helplessly across the table at Miller’s struggle to keep his eyes open. Bellamy’s presence is warm and solid beside her, his voice low and familiar and his laugh gravelly and light. She lets herself lean into him once or twice or six times, losing track by the time she passes instance number nine of her shoulder pressing into his.

 

Bellamy eases out of the booth a few minutes later, digging through his pockets for change as he approaches the jukebox. He spends a long minute flipping carefully through the selections, squinting hard in attempt to focus his blurred vision.

 

He shakes his head as he hears Jasper and Raven yelling boisterously over something involving giant unicorn robots. At least, it _sounds_ like they’re saying ‘giant unicorn robots’. In his defense, it’s highly likely that by now, neither Jasper nor Raven is too clear on what they’re saying themselves.

 

He tries not to look at Clarke when he slides back in next to her, the familiar melodic strains of a guitar playing from the jukebox as Neil Finn earnestly croons _‘there is freedom within, there is freedom without’_.

 

He fails.

 

He tries not to smile either when she sways indulgently with the music, her shoulder bumping lightly into his chest.

 

He fails at that, too.

 

Everyone loudly joins in on the chorus, Jasper hooking a lanky arm around Monty’s neck as Raven and Harper dramatically reach over the table for each other with outstretched hands, singing _‘hey now, hey now, don’t dream it’s over’_.

 

 

 

“You won’t be, you know,” Clarke says later, as they’re safely bundled in a cab headed for home.

 

He tears his gaze from the half-fogged window, tilting his head at her. “I won’t what?”

 

Her head lifts up to meet his questioning expression, hands still lightly cradling a passed out Raven’s head in her lap, the unconscious girl’s feet thrown out across the backseat to rest on top of Bellamy’s legs.

 

“Be a bartender. Not for much longer.” Her lips curve upward, and he can’t remember the last time he saw someone smile like that — not quite happy, but not quite sad either. “Not after this.”

 

They look at each other for a long moment. Clarke watches the illumination of passing streetlamps flicker across one side of his face, the other cast in shadows as he watches her right back.

 

Miller snores suddenly from the passenger seat.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  

The next two days are filled with slumping over each other on couches, snuggled under blankets with packets of Oreos and bags of Doritos.

 

Raven and Miller spend most of the first day fighting sleep, slipping in and out of dozy bouts of slumber or retreating to their bedrooms every few hours, yawning as they go. On the second, they hole up in Miller’s room with _Call of Duty 4_ and _Mario Kart_ , alternating bursts of gunfire and lilting 16-bit jingles leaking out of the door left ajar.

 

Bellamy and Clarke sprawl out in the living room, too exhausted to move, mumbling half-assed jokes as they devour entire seasons of _Chuck_.

 

“It’s so fucking clichéd,” she says as she queues up the next episode, Bellamy returning from the kitchen with a pint of ice cream. “Nerd gets the superhot blonde girl even though she’d never have given him a shot if not for being forced to work with him. I love it, but it’s so fucking _clichéd_.”

 

“You’re playing the lead role in the movie adaptation of a YA book trilogy about a teenaged girl who leads a revolution to overthrow the establishment with her appropriately older, perpetually moody sort-of-almost-boyfriend,” Bellamy says, brow raised. “It’s _pretty_ clear you love clichéd.”

 

“ _You’re_ clichéd,” she grumbles without a trace of bitterness, prodding him in the hip with her bare toes. “Pass the mint chip, smartass.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The four of them find themselves at the bar again the following week.

 

Bellamy comes up to the bar to thank Gina for another round of free shots, and she smiles charmingly and asks for his number. He gives it to her, but then suddenly hears himself clearing his throat, and his voice saying he’s not looking to date anyone right now.

 

Her face falls slightly, but she reinforces her pretty grin with a cheery shrug, brushing her curls off her flushed forehead as she tells him not to worry — she gets it.

 

 _That makes one of us_ , he thinks ruefully as he makes his way back to their table — but he instantly forgets Gina when Raven bounces back into her seat, a familiar guitar riff playing from the jukebox.

 

Miller pumps his fists to the jaunty beat as they all instantly sing along with the Violent Femmes: _‘When I’m out walking, I strut my stuff, and I’m so strung out.’_

 

Clarke’s grin fades after the second chorus, and her gaze drops to the bubbles rising to the top of her beer glass. Her hand curves slowly around the cool glass, fingers trailing through the sheen of condensation, and it’s not hard for him to see that she’s still not quite able to believe just how much she misses their co-stars.

 

Bellamy nudges her as Raven and Miller grasp at each other’s shoulders, eyes widened dramatically at each other as they hoarsely whisper along to Gordan Gano’s fevered confessions. He grins and deliberately mouths the next line at her: _‘_ _I’m high as a kite, I just might stop to check you out.’_

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but her laugh lets him know they’re both thinking of the same thing — Jasper singing that same line to Maya on several occasions during repeated misguided attempts at flirting, complete with waggling eyebrows and body shimmying.

 

One hour and several beers in, Bellamy somehow manages to find Biz Markie’s ‘Just A Friend’ on the jukebox.

 

He and Clarke record Miller’s impassioned sing-along to the entire song, making sure to capture the facial reactions of a half-disgusted, half-amused Raven beside him.

 

Clarke sends the video to the cast group chat they set up on the first day of stunt training, and Jasper immediately replies _‘gIVING ME LIFEEEEEEEE’_ followed by a long, _long_ string of colourful, senseless emojis. Monty and Harper start to chime in soon after, and Clarke smiles down at her phone.

 

Bellamy doesn’t bother reaching for his, content to keep track of the conversation over her shoulder, the curve of her smile firmly in his eye line.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading part ii! i also just want to say thank you for the amount of love y'all are showing this fic =) it's seriously unreal. i'm a little surprised, a little overwhelmed and 100% grateful! 
> 
> if you do like it, keep the kudos and the comments coming! i really love hearing what y'all think =) it helps so, SO much!
> 
> come hold me on [tumblr](http://caramellakers.tumblr.com/)!


	3. part iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time, Bellamy and Clarke are on their own.

 

 

 

 

They’re missing the others.

 

Jasper, Monty, Harper — somehow, their absence is infinitely more deafening than their presence, the lack of them creating a vacuum that rings so much louder than their antics and games and jokes and teasing.

 

One day, they’re getting their makeup done and Raven scoffs suddenly in her chair, her phone in hand,

 

“I swear,” she announces, scowling at the screen. “If Jordan doesn’t quit leaving me fucking novel-length sappy as shit comments on every single picture I post to Instagram, I am going to _block_ his skinny ass.”

 

Clarke smiles at the other girl’s disgruntled expression in the mirror. “No, you’re not.”

 

Raven sighs, letting the screen drop from her face. “Really grows on you, doesn’t he? Like some kind of abandoned puppy.”

 

Clarke shrugs, eyes dancing with amusement. “I like puppies.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Raven grumbles, bringing the phone back up to her face to avoid Clarke’s laughing gaze. “Everyone likes puppies, okay? Shut up.”

 

When they arrive on set, Miller looks up from his conversation with Bellamy and immediately starts waving his own phone around, ranting about how Harper has been telling every female fan that comments on any of his Instagram posts the exact same thing: _‘why him when u could thirst over michael b jordan’_.

 

“She’s ruining my _rep_ ,” Miller complains, thrusting his phone in Clarke’s face.

 

Raven blinks flatly at him as she plucks the device out of his hand for a closer look. “You can’t _ruin_ something that doesn’t _exist_.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jasper begs all of them to download about three or four different video chatting platforms in the hopes of finding one that can manage a seven-way chat with minimal awkward lag time.

 

“This is _stupid_ ,” Harper says on their third consecutive night of trying. “We didn’t even hang out every single day when we were living in the same _building_.”

 

“Yes, we did,” Jasper insists, his hair taking up nearly half his screen. It’s grown even shaggier than when they’d last seen him, sticking out in wild tufts over his head.

 

“Watching TV in exhausted silence doesn’t exactly count, Jasper,” Monty points out wryly.

 

“It’s not _silence_ ,” Jasper argues.

 

“‘Want another beer?’ doesn’t count, Jordan,” Miller says emphatically.

 

“He’s cranky,” Raven explains cheerfully to the rest of the group, elbowing Miller out of the frame. “He got a backache from shooting his gay wrestling scene on Tuesday.”

 

“It’s just _wrestling_ ,” Miller shoots back indignantly, jostling back into view. “You can’t call it _gay_ just because _I’m_ —”

 

“Jaha literally made you do twenty-three takes of practically sitting on that guy’s face.”

 

Miller pauses. “Okay, yeah, it was kind of gay.”

 

“Come to think of it,” Harper says with a frown, “Jaha isn’t _married_. And he’s got no girlfriend, for sure.”

 

Everyone hums in consideration.

 

“Speaking of married,” Monty chimes in jauntily, “are Bellamy and Clarke still running lines? As fun as it sounds, I’d rather not spend my _entire_ night speculating on Jaha’s sexuality.”

 

“If he even _has_ one,” Miller says darkly as Raven pulls away, yelling in the direction of the living room for Bellamy and Clarke to _‘slow your workaholic roll and get in here so you can say hi to your children’._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

One week later, Raven and Miller pack a bag each and, together with half the crew, drive six hours out to a separate location to film a couple of minor scenes.

 

 _‘omg miller isnt letting me close the door btwn our rooms,’_ Raven’s text to Clarke reads when they arrive at their hotel. _‘if he thinks im gna b down w listening 2 him blast adele for the next 72h he’s insane in tha membrane.’_

 

Clarke shows Bellamy the text as they’re tugging on shoes and jackets to go get dinner.

 

“If Reyes is quoting nineties hip-hop, it’s gotta be bad,” Bellamy sympathises half-heartedly in the elevator.

 

“In that case, she’s probably downright miserable for about ninety-two percent of the time,” Clarke observes in an impressive deadpan.

 

She cracks a grin when he laughs unexpectedly, shaking his head at her.

 

They don’t go far; just a nearby diner that they’re used to ducking into for a quick bite to eat with the others.

 

They slide into a booth and place their orders in twenty seconds flat, and then the conversation flows — actually _flows_ , effortless and smooth and _easy_. Bellamy gets the vague feeling that she’s just as surprised as him.

 

It takes about three seconds for Clarke to pick up on his sudden switch into tentativeness, and she rolls her eyes at him across the table.

 

“We’ve been living under the same roof for four months,” she says, levelling him with a flat look. “Not to mention seeing each other practically every day for nearly twice that long. For crying out loud, we finished two and a half seasons of _Chuck_.”

 

She raises a brow, one side of her mouth quirking up in a half-smile. “I _think_ we can manage two nights without Raven or Miller around to babysit.”

 

He grins then, a slight flush warming his face. “Ah yes. _Chuck_. The universal litmus test of getting along.”

 

The rest of dinner goes by in a haze of mild teasing and speculation on whether Raven will return home a murderer or an Adele superfan.

 

Both of them are too tired from seven straight days of shooting to do much else other than head back home, collapse onto the couch and continue where they left off with Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker, absently passing the large slice of apple pie they’d brought home from the diner back and forth, jostling elbows and knocking each other’s forks away to get at the last couple of bites.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The next day, Clarke announces that she’s going grocery shopping before it completely slips her mind yet again. He pulls himself off the couch and stumbles after her half-groggily, not even pausing to grab his phone.

 

They wander around the store for a few minutes, arguing a little over what type of Cheerios to get and rolling their eyes at two women debating the difference between low-fat and nonfat milk in the dairy section.

 

Bellamy is far too amused when Clarke struggles to reach the top shelf for paper towels.

 

Clarke hides her smile behind a box of toothpaste as Bellamy goes on about how _‘Ajax is literally the best fucking name in the WORLD for a cleaner I mean come on “stronger than all of grease” that’s hands down the only pun that MATTERS on this EARTH’_.

 

She watches him stifle a yawn as they’re queuing up to pay for their purchases. “You didn’t _have_ to come, you know,” she says, brow raised as she nudges him with an elbow.

 

“S’alright,” he says with a lazy grin. “Someone has to be the muscle when Reyes isn’t around.”

 

They spend the rest of the day on the couch again, ordering Thai takeout for lunch even though it’s barely past eleven, going through more _Chuck_ episodes at an alarming rate, taking breaks to run lines whenever they get antsy.

 

Bellamy dozes off sometime in the late afternoon, his head drooping over onto his own shoulder.

 

Some time later, he wakes up suddenly with a small jerk and a bitch of a neck ache, but forgets to be annoyed when he feels something burrowing under his legs and looks down to see Clarke’s feet tucked into the space between the backs of his thighs and the couch. The rest of her is asleep, blonde head propped on the opposite arm of the couch in what looks like an infinitely superior sleeping position to the one he’d ended up in.

 

She wakes up about thirty minutes later, and watches him channel surf for a bit, eyelids still heavy with sleep. He settles on some kind of food show — of the travel-to-exotic-locations-and-fuck-your-digestive-system-up variety — and she instantly sits up and declares that it’s dinnertime.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They head out to a seafood place a little further out from where they usually go with the others.

 

Clarke had first suggested it during their first week in town, but instantly dropped it when Jasper and Monty shamefacedly copped to shellfish allergies. There had been one night where Bellamy had a rare night off set even though Clarke had to work, and he’d almost wanted to suggest trying it then with Miller and Raven. For some reason, he hadn’t.

 

It’s about a twenty-minute walk, and the night chill nips gently at their skin, but the sky is clear and there’s a lightness settling into their bones.

 

The laughs come easily and often, and she hits him excitedly on the shoulder when he tells her about an upcoming project he recently booked an audition for. He gently presses a hand to her back to guide her around a pair of loitering youngsters sharing a cigarette.

 

A lot of times, when they’re on set with the floodlights and boom mics hovering overhead and crowds of cast and crew surrounding them, it can feel less like acting, and a lot more like they’re always working to defuse a ticking time bomb.

 

But, tonight — tonight, neon signboards are glowing and streetlamps are flickering pale amber and, for once, they don’t feel like they’re constantly teetering on the edge of something dangerous, explosive.

 

They get a small table by the window and take their time over the menu, both looking up when a smiling waitress appears for their order. They end up getting a bottle of white wine and some kind of lobster special to split, because they’ve both been snacking on junk food all day but they still really want to save room for dessert.

 

The waitress lingers when they’re done ordering — for a good long second, her smile widening in a way that makes them both blink before she sails away.

 

“Maybe she recognises you,” Bellamy says, with a quirk of his brow.

 

“Maybe she recognises us both,” Clarke points out, her eyes crinkling in amusement.

 

Their appetiser arrives, some sort of sweet-potato-and-avocado concoction with gooey, soft cheese melted all over the top that makes them both hum with appreciation.

 

They trade stories about the numerous part-time jobs they’ve both taken up in between looking for gigs.

 

She’s somewhere between amazed and suspicious when Bellamy tells her he can cook, instantly demanding that he cook dinner the next time they can scrounge up the energy and time to go shopping for groceries that include more than just Pop-Tarts and instant coffee.

 

He’s pleasantly surprised when she asks about his sister by name, and can’t quite contain the swell of pride in his chest as he tells her all about Octavia’s fervent passion for social activism and volunteering at pet shelters.

 

She doesn’t _intend_ to let on much, but she still finds herself telling him about the fallout with her mother.

 

“She thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life by dropping out of pre-med,” Clarke says, a slight edge entering her voice. “I disagreed.” She shifts in her chair, lips pressed together. “We had a deal, actually. If I didn’t get this job, I’d go back home and finish my course.”

 

She glances up then, hesitantly. “It’s— that’s actually why I was so keyed up, that day at the audition. I didn’t mean to—” She inhales sharply, and lets the breath out slowly. “Sorry. I never apologised for that.”

 

“Yes, it definitely would’ve been an even bigger mistake,” he says, nodding firmly.

 

Her brow lifts curiously. “What would?”

 

“Giving you a job where people’s lives are actually in your physical hands,” he tells her solemnly. “We spent weeks on stunt training, Clarke. I’ve seen you trip on a perfectly flat gym mat.”

 

He breathes the smallest sigh of relief when she dissolves into laughter, loose strands of yellow falling into her face as her head dips slightly with the force of it.

 

Halfway through their lobster dish, the conversation turns towards the projects they’ve worked on.

 

Bellamy frowns silently when she talks about her brief, eight-episode stint on _In Command_ , a network cop drama with a track record of decent ratings. Now four seasons in, the lead actress, Lexa Woods, already has multiple award wins and nominations under her belt.

 

“It was a good experience, I guess,” she says with a shrug, fingers playing with the stem of her wineglass. “But I’m glad I left.”

 

“They wanted you to stay?” he asks carefully. This territory feels new and familiar all at once, and frankly, he’s more than a little intrigued at the idea of a world where he and Clarke open up to each other via widely practiced social conventions like dinner conversation.

 

“Lexa did.” She turns to thank their smiling waitress as the other woman removes their empty plates. “We had… fun working together.”

 

Something in Bellamy’s gut twists in on itself, a distant voice yelling faintly but clearly at him from the back of his mind — _Lexa is the co-worker Clarke hooked up with_.

 

Clarke clears her throat. “Anyway, she loved my character. She wanted to talk to the producers, get them to consider making me a series regular.”

 

“ _Wanted_ to?” His gaze flicks down to her fidgeting fingers.

 

She exhales, picking up her glass. “She found out they were talking about making her a producer, and— well. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise that.”

 

There’s a long beat, and Bellamy doesn’t quite know what to do with his face or hands.

 

Clarke abruptly barks out a laugh, soundless and soulless. “I’m told I would have done the same thing in her place.”

 

“Bullshit,” he says instantly, before he’s quite realised that he’s speaking. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, but forces himself to meet her questioning gaze head-on. “Look, in my experience — and trust me, I’ve had quite a bit — that’s just something people say to make themselves feel less shitty about the shitty things they’ve done.”

 

She’s still watching him, but her expression isn’t at all wary or cautious or doubtful.

 

“How do you know?” she finally asks, a crease etched into her forehead. “Maybe that’s exactly what I would have done. I—” she pauses, suddenly looking pained.

 

He leans forward, catching her gaze and holding it as best as he can. “You’re a piece of work, Clarke. You go hard, you’re scary focused, and you can be extremely difficult to get along with when you decide to be.”

 

A smile tugs at his lips at the sight of her brows knitting together in bemusement. “Hear me out. As hard as you fight to get to where you want to be, you’d never throw anyone under the bus to get there. You’d find another way. And if you couldn’t find one, you’d _make_ one.”

 

There’s something he can’t quite name in her expression, washed soft golden by the gentle flicker of the table’s tea lights.

 

She smiles then, small and warm, and he’s suddenly flung all the way back to their first audition, when he’d gone off script and she’d looked up at him and followed him without hesitation — _‘Whenever you’re ready.’_

 

Something is different between them, he realises. As he picks up the dessert menu left behind by their cheery waitress, he can’t shake the feeling that things have been different for a very, very long time now.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“You know, I was a little mad at you before,” Clarke says conversationally as they step back out onto the pavement, his hand still lingering on her back from when he'd ushered her out the door.

 

He raises a brow at her, huffing a caustic laugh as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “No shit.”

 

“I Googled you after our audition,” she explains with a wry smile, pulling her zipper up against the brisk night air. “When I saw that I have a little more experience than you, I kind of thought… Well, with all the action shit we were gonna have to do in this movie, I just thought there might be one thing I’d be better at than you, at least.” She shakes her head ruefully. “Nope, not even that.”

 

He blinks, his mind instantly wiped blank. “What?”

 

She makes a small sighing sound, pulling her beanie down to sit more snugly on her head.

 

“In case you didn’t know, you have this thing where you tend to show how you’re feeling all the time, with literally every inch of your being. You make your character come alive every time you speak and somehow manage to pack about nine different emotions in two words. It’s fucking _incredible_ to watch, and also _incredibly_ frustrating for someone like me who has to—”

 

She breaks off suddenly, glancing sideways at him like she’s accidentally dropped something and she’s hoping no one saw it. She blinks and smiles, hasty and careless. “I mean. Well. It just doesn’t come to me the way it does to you, I guess.”

 

He gapes at her.

 

He knows it’s unseemly of him, but he can’t _help_ it.

 

“Are you serious?” he finally manages when his voice returns. “You’re— oh my God, Clarke. You’re _unreal_.”

 

She looks up at him, brows furrowed dubiously. “What does that mean?”

 

He shakes his head as he slows down, a little overcome with disbelief.

 

“No matter how much I feel like I’m pushing myself to reach a ten, I turn around and there you are, ramping it up to a twelve without breaking a sweat. You see the good _and_ the bad in everything, and you accept it all the same, and it fucking _shows_ when you become your character. You don’t just make her come alive; you make her _real_. You’re quick as _fuck_ on your feet, you never miss a beat—” he shakes his head again when she starts to smile, “—No, I’m _serious_. Me, I get way too invested, I get caught up in the shitstorm, but you’re always right there with me and I need—”

 

He stops, sharply sucking in a breath.

 

They tear their gazes away from each other and look ahead, simultaneously lengthening their strides to resume their earlier pace.

 

“Yeah,” she says after a long moment, a hint of something in her voice that makes her sound slightly breathless. “Yeah — me too.”

 

 

 

They walk the rest of the way home in silence.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

Clarke spends all of the next day barricaded in her room, surrounded by pencils and sketchpads and remnants of whatever food she can find in the kitchen on her way back from the bathroom. She puts on sweatpants and a snug hoodie, and listens to the same two Beach House albums on loop for the entirety of the day.

 

Bellamy doesn’t have to see it to know she’s curled up in a pile of blankets in her bed or on the floor, picking up traces of lead on her fingertips and smudging bits of grey across her face as she brushes her untamed hair out of her face.

 

He tries to watch _Troy_ on the living room TV, but he turns it off before it’s even halfway through.

 

He tries a few different history documentaries after that, but he’s too restless to focus properly, more absorbed in the staccato he’s tapping out on his thighs with the remote than the screen.

 

He gives up around four and heads to the gym instead, even though he’s supposed to be resting up for when they go back to work in a couple of days. When he gets back, he retreats to his room and buries himself in Robert Graves for a few hours.

 

Somewhere in the middle, Octavia calls him and spends ten minutes banging on excitedly about the pet shelter she volunteers at four times a week.

 

“Sorry I haven’t called in a while, by the way,” she adds apologetically. “I’ve been busy enough with work, but the shelter’s really swamped too. It’s like every two days, another box of abandoned puppies pops up on the doorstep. I swear, it’s getting harder and harder to not bring a few of the poor babies home,” she says with a sigh. “You wouldn’t mind coming home to, like, four dogs, would you?”

 

“Yes, I would,” he says dryly, dropping his head back onto his pillow with a smile. “I would very much mind. Please do not do that.”

 

She huffs, but it’s mostly for show. They’re fully aware of their landlord’s restrictions on pets, and they really can’t afford to be kicked out of their small apartment, not when Octavia’s only just graduated college and found a job.

 

“I’ll find it in me to hold off for another few months,” she says, her tone letting him know that she’s rolling her eyes. “How’s it going with you, Bell? Since I’m actually hearing your voice, I’ll just go ahead and assume Clarke Griffin’s dead, then?”

 

He stills uncomfortably, fingers clutching at his phone. “You know it’s not like that anymore, O.”

 

Octavia clicks her tongue, and he easily pictures her waving a dismissive hand.

 

“I know, I know,” she laughs, her voice coming in tinnier than usual over the phone connection. “Still, I gotta say, I _was_ a little worried. You’ve never been left alone in the apartment before, just the two of you.”

 

He swallows, one hand twisting into the hem of his shirt. “Yeah, it— it wasn’t that bad, actually. We went out for dinner—”

 

“Shut _up_ ,” she gasps, slightly muffled. “One dinner! They’re _saved_!”

 

He shifts on his back restlessly. “Twice, actually.”

 

“Oh,” Octavia says — really _says_ it, instead of letting it come out as an offhand comment or sound of acknowledgement. “And?”

 

He shrugs, even though he knows she can’t see him. “And. It was… good.” He pauses to gnaw on his bottom lip, images of blonde hair and blue eyes flashing through his head. “Different.”

 

Octavia scoffs. “Different from binge-watching TV after spending twenty-four straight hours working? Does that mean you were both actually awake and responsive?”

 

“Hey, we pay attention when binge-watching TV after twenty-four straight hours of working,” he says defensively.

 

Octavia makes a _‘pfft’_ sound, and he thinks of her rolling her eyes with a little shake of her head.

 

“By the way,” she continues, a sober note weighting her voice. “You okay, big brother? You sound... different.”

 

A lump rises in his throat, which he immediately tries to clear with a loud cough.

 

“Tired, as usual. It’s hard trying to look pretty for the cameras all day, you know,” he quips, his tone not quite matching up to the flippancy of his words.

 

Octavia doesn’t laugh.

 

“You’ve been tired ever since you booked this gig,” she points out, almost sternly. “You were practically dead on your feet after that week Dante Wallace came in, but you didn’t sound like _this_. This is not what Tired Bell sounds like. What’s up?”

 

He thinks, lips pressed tightly together. Finally, he exhales, long and deep. “I’m fine, O. I just need— I just need some rest. That’s all.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

He emerges from his darkened cave when he hears the front door bang open, familiar voices calling out from the hallway.

 

Clarke is already there when he arrives, wrapped up in a snug embrace with Raven. He clears his throat and grins at Miller, going in for a one-armed hug-handshake hybrid of the bro-est variety.

 

“Okay,” Raven announces when she and Miller have chucked their bags in their rooms. “I’m fully aware that it’s way past dinnertime, but can we _please_ go get some grub?”

 

“Please,” Miller adds, glancing round at Clarke and Bellamy. “I’m fucking exhausted but I just _know_ I’m not gonna get any sleep otherwise.”

 

They end up at the usual diner.

 

They listen to Raven’s pent-up complaints about Jaha’s long-windedness, and Miller’s accumulated woes regarding the lack of decent food in the town they were staying in over the last two days. They laugh in all the right places, and make sure to respond with sarcasm or sympathy, whichever one the moment calls for.

 

The only glitch is when Clarke catches Raven humming ‘Someone Like You’ under her breath, and she instantly flashes a triumphant grin at Bellamy. He’s already smiling back before he knows it — and for half a second they’re suspended in some kind of limbo, like they’re back to their usual mucking-around-on-set selves.

 

But then Clarke blinks, and her gaze slides down from his, her grin fading almost imperceptibly as she vaguely pokes her fork into her food.

 

He averts his eyes, hand clenching tighter around the neck of his beer bottle, and forces himself to laugh at Miller’s accusatory point-and-yell: _"I fucking KNEW IT, Reyes!"_

 

On the way back to the apartment, Raven comfortably loops her elbow around Bellamy’s, tugging him to slow down so that they’re lagging after the others.

 

“Hey,” Raven says lowly. “Is everything okay?”

 

Bellamy blinks, glancing ahead. “What do you mean?”

 

Raven shrugs, brown eyes searching. “You seem a little… off. Clarke, too.” Her gaze narrows appraisingly. “You guys have a fight or something?”

 

Bellamy’s responding laugh is really only half-forced. He can’t help but feel amused at how she could not possibly be further from the truth. He shakes his head, averting his gaze. “Wha— no, of _course_ not.”

 

“Are you sure?” Raven presses, leaning in closer. “To be honest, I _was_ a little worried about leaving you two alone together. I know you were never exactly BFFs, but it really did feel like you guys were… you know. Getting along, at least.”

 

He swallows, glancing over to where Clarke’s head is thrown back in laughter. Beside her, Miller is flailing his arms in what appears to be an imitation of an assistant getting chewed out by Anya.

 

“We’re fine,” Bellamy finally says, meeting Raven’s concernedly raised brow with a placid smile. “Really. We’re just… tired, I think. Big scene coming up, right?”

 

He feels Raven look at him for a long moment — _feels_ it, rather than just seeing it. Finally, she exhales deeply.

 

“If you say so,” she sighs, letting her arm slip from his. “I swear, half the time, I don’t even know if it’s the characters or if it’s just you two.”

 

 _Me neither_ , he wants to say.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He _is_ tired, he realises when he wakes up their first day back at work.

 

It’s not just physical fatigue or exhaustion. It’s something in his head, making everything feel murky and setting off a piercing throbbing in the left side of his temple. He gets out of the shower and stares at himself for a good long minute, trapped in that strange sensation of feeling like one’s face doesn’t really belong to one.

 

It doesn’t ease up on the way to set, like he hopes.

 

The eighties rock Raven always insists on playing on the forty-minute drive to _‘wake us the fuck up for a kickass day’_ doesn’t help his mood the way it usually does.

 

At a stoplight, he accidentally spills hot coffee into his lap from the thermos Miller passes him.

 

He’s too busy dabbing at his soaked pants to realise the light’s gone green, so he gets very sharply and unceremoniously honked at by the cars behind him.

 

He’s about as useful as a comatose zombie all throughout hair and makeup, unable to summon up anything more energetic than a grunt in response to Miller’s attempts at conversation or the hairstylist’s questions.

 

When they arrive on set, Clarke is already behind the camera with Jaha. They both look up when he approaches, Jaha crooking his fingers to beckon him over.

 

“I don’t want to put pressure on either of you,” Jaha begins, eyes raking over them. “But this is _it_. The one that’s going to make or break the whole movie.”

 

They know, they know.

 

This is the moment that their characters have it out, lay everything out between them under a weeping sky. The people they’re going to inhabit and become for the rest of the day — they’re going to hurt each other the way only they can; and then they have to heal each other the way only they can.

 

There’s not a lot of room for dramatic heart-to-heart scenes in these types of movies. There’s always some kind of plot twist to build up to, some kind of big reveal or convoluted dilemma for the heroes to conquer next.

 

Heartbreak doesn’t often get prime placement in YA-targeted media works — not the kind that’s been written into _this_ scene, at least. It’s harsh, and it’s not pretty or poetic or anywhere _near_ swoon-worthy.

 

It’s not the kind of escape large movie studios want to sell to crowds of teenagers looking to feed their vicarious emotional hunger.

 

Suddenly, Bellamy feels a mad, inexplicable desire to laugh. The whole scene’s supposed to be three minutes long.

 

That’s it.

 

Three minutes for them to tear each other apart and put each other back together.

 

“I don’t want either of you to hold back,” Jaha finishes, levelling them with a long, weighted gaze. “Put it all out there. Don’t leave anything behind for later.” He pauses, looking back and forth between them. “There won’t _be_ a later.”

 

They join Raven and Miller to get re-spritzed with water, and get into position.

 

He sees Clarke slip into her character — her shoulders pull back, her lips press together, her face sets with something he still can’t quite name, something she’s made unique to her character.

 

He takes a deep breath, and pulls his own character up.

 

Today, it feels like less of a mask, and more of a shield.

 

They go through the first part of the scene, the one with all four of them still together. Bellamy snaps at Raven; Clarke turns away from Miller. The air is thick with moisture and tension. It slowly seeps through their clothes and into their prickling skin, trickling down the backs of their necks and dampening their socks uncomfortably.

 

It is, by far, the least fun any of them can remember having on set.

 

Three hours later, they’re finally done with the last take of Bellamy storming away from the group.

 

Jaha insists on one last reshoot of Clarke hesitating before furiously getting up to follow after him, and then, mercifully, calls for a break.

 

Raven and Miller linger in their respectively shared trailers, stepping out of their costumes and washing off their makeup between bites of tuna sandwiches.

 

At first, Bellamy thinks that maybe they’ll hang about to watch him and Clarke film their fight.

 

The very thought makes his stomach churn and his hands clammy.

 

Which is ridiculous, frankly. He’s spent the last few months putting himself on camera through ridiculous stunts and gratuitous shots of him without a shirt.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people are going to see this scene on eighty-foot cinema screens. It really shouldn’t bother him that his co-workers and roommates are going to see it in the flesh.

 

Thankfully, Raven and Miller don’t stick around once the crew starts scurrying about to set up for the next scene. They pull on their coats and dole out encouraging hugs, before disappearing with the assistant assigned to drive them home.

 

They find out why once they arrive at the location for the second half of the scene, a nine-minute drive deep into the forest.

 

When they’d first read ‘EXT. CLEARING’ on the script, they’d both imagined a sizeable patch of green, comfortably lined by trees, rays of sunshine casting down from the sky to maybe light up a flower growth or two.

 

The ‘clearing’ that they arrive at consists of maybe five to six square feet of space, with unyielding trunks of rough bark jutting into the roughly semicircular perimeter. The other side of the space is completely hemmed in by solid rock, forming an uneven wall of moss-covered stone and shrubbery.

 

‘Clearing’ is a very, very generous word for the space they’re going to occupy for the next few hours.

 

They wait while the remaining members of the crew scramble about for last-minute checks — every other non-essential has been sent home for the day, to minimise obstructions on the tiny set.

 

They stand silent and let Anya and her assistant look them over one last time, pinning in loose hems and rubbing dirt and mud onto their half-dried pants. Anya huffs and complains about the mud not being _‘muddy enough’_ , and Bellamy looks over, trying to catch Clarke’s eye, but she’s already ensconced in character, posture ramrod straight, sharp blue eyes trained dead ahead, jaw clenching under a façade of impassioned determination.

 

He swallows and presses his lips together, tearing his gaze away and silencing the impending wave of chaos by slipping inward, out of his mind and into his character’s.

 

Soon enough, they’re directed into the tiny clearing and into position, and Jaha stands and stares at them both over the plastic-sheathed camera.

 

“Don’t leave _anything_ behind,” he repeats, his voice easily carrying over the small distance, low and clear.

 

Suddenly, it’s _‘clear the set, take one’_ and the deafening snap of the clapperboard and Jaha’s voice decreeing _‘action’_ , and Bellamy disappears.

 

Clarke disappears, too.

 

In their place are two entirely different people, and those people look at each other in the eye and open their mouths and yell bitterness, growl anger, bite frustration.

 

His mouth goes dry and the tang of metal grinds against his teeth and flints off his tongue. He sees the glint of steel in familiar blue eyes and he can barely recognise her when they’re both seeing everything in hot streaks of red and pain, this person he trusts with his very _life_ , this firecracker of a girl he would follow anywhere, and it breaks him and it batters at him to realise that she doesn’t understand that she is not infallible, that she cannot bear the entire world on her shoulders, that she doesn’t deserve to have her hands stained with blood.

 

Every time Jaha calls ‘cut!’, he blinks twice — pure reflex at having to pull up short, to pull back and get back to the starting line — but it always feels like he’s barely had time to draw breath before they’re being instructed to go again.

 

Somewhere between takes ten and eleven, he starts to lose his already fragile grip.

 

The throbbing is back, pulsing pain through his head and spreading a dull ache throughout his neck and shoulders. It’s the most exhausting day he can remember ever having in his life, and honestly, all he really wants to do right now is curl up on his couch and watch three episodes of _Chuck_ with Clarke — _Clarke_ , not this _character_ in front of him right now, a storm of ice and fire wrapped up in woman.

 

But he can’t do that.

 

He can’t do anything other than keep going, because they _have_ to keep going while they’ve still got the natural drizzle coming in, while the temperature’s still bearable, and they _have_ to keep going because Jaha is breathing down the cinematographer’s neck to make sure they get this one angle _exactly_ right, and everyone’s wet and cold and tired and counting on them to get this _exactly_ right.

 

On the fourteenth take, something inside him snaps, and he takes two strides forward to crowd into her personal space, hands curling tightly around her shoulders to with an urgent need to make her feel his desperation — _‘I can’t lose you!’_ he half-roars, his face just inches from hers.

 

She looks up at him, the steeled edge dissolving from her gaze even though she stands firm, refusing to back down in the slightest. Her eyelids flutter against the feather-light downpour, but she holds his burning gaze, little beads of liquid crystal trapped in her lashes and her rumpled blonde waves.

 

 _‘I can’t lose you too,’_ she finally says — and it’s different from the frustrated outbursts they’ve been doing over and over and _over_.

 

It’s quiet, and visceral, and it echoes throughout the small space and ricochets off the inside of his skull.

 

Tiny droplets of rainwater streak their way down his tangled curls and onto his damp skin.

 

“Cut.”

 

That one syllable bears him back into reality.

 

He blinks, his fingers loosening in surprise when he suddenly realises he’s looking into the eyes of Clarke — _Clarke_ , not her character.

 

He blinks again, and steps back from Clarke, his hands dropping away from her.

 

“And print.”

 

There’s a note of gratified finality in Jaha’s voice. Bellamy doesn’t have to look at the director to know his arms are folded.

 

“That’s a wrap on the day. Good work, everyone.”

 

He doesn’t look at Clarke, doesn’t look at Jaha, doesn’t look at anyone — just turns and strides off set.

 

Kane puts out a hand when he passes, resting it on his shoulder so that he stops in his tracks.

 

“Good job, Bellamy,” Kane mutters lowly, stepping in closer. Bellamy doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t face him. “You—” He hears the older man pause, and sigh. Kane’s hand lifts from his shoulder to give it two firm pats. “Get some rest, son.”

 

He nods and walks away, not waiting to hear if Kane says anything to Clarke.

 

He climbs into the car they’d taken to location before there’s even a driver at the wheel.

 

One does appear soon enough, but he doesn’t look up to see who it is because that would mean catching a glimpse of Clarke ducking into the backseat across from him, and it’s not her, not really, but he really doesn’t think he can look at anyone right now because he’s still not sure of who it is that’s going to see them through his unfocused eyes, him or his character.

 

He squeezes his eyes shut for the nine-minute drive back to their trailers, and mechanically goes through the motions of changing out of his soaked, dirty set clothes and into his undershirt and sweater, shrugging on his thicker coat before grabbing his backpack and heading out to the car. He throws his bag in the backseat and keys on the engine, turning the heat up but leaving the lights off as he waits, the silence interrupted by the steady stream of rain droplets still falling from the midnight sky.

 

Five minutes later, the passenger door pulls open, and Clarke climbs into the seat, closing the door against the whoosh of cold air rushing in.

 

She hugs her bag to her chest, and they sit in silence for a few moments, watching the light rain dash gently against the windshield.

 

Finally, he shifts the car into gear, and they pull out of the parking lot. She reaches for the aux cord, and plugs in some kind of soft ballad — Aqualung, he recognises distantly. She especially likes Aqualung on nights when shooting runs really late, and they spend the entire drive home letting the soft music fill the car, both content to just enjoy the companionable quiet.

 

This quiet is different.

 

This quiet is strange, and it makes him feel like something inside of him has fallen to pieces.

 

He parks in their building, but doesn’t make a move to shut off the engine. He lets his hands rest on the wheel, and he lets heavy lids fall over his weary eyes, he lets Matt Hales’s lulling timbre wash over him — _I hold my breath, and disappear inside myself_.

 

Beside him, Clarke waits, still and unmoving.

 

They walk through the echoing stillness of the underground parking lot and into the deafening quiet of the elevator, both slumping against the back wall once the doors close.

 

“Do you,” she starts, pausing to clear the hoarseness from her throat against the hum of the moving elevator. “Do you think they know they’re— they’re in—”

 

His fingers clench in his coat pockets. “No,” he answers, low and rough. “Not yet, at least.”

 

It’s well past one in the morning by the time they let themselves into the darkened apartment, the lone yellow light of the open hallway left on by their roommates.

 

He nods at her to go ahead of him, and slowly toes out of his shoes while she disappears into her room. He stares at his socked feet for a long moment, before finally bending over to peel them off one by one.

 

He listens for the sounds of the bathroom door closing and the shower running before moving, slipping out of the hallway and into the safety of his own room.

 

Twenty minutes later, he emerges from his turn in the shower to see flashes of ambilight coming from the living room.

 

Cautiously, he steps out of the dark corridor to see Clarke on the couch, legs tucked under her with an oversized hoodie wrapped around her. She pauses midway through scrolling, remote pointed at the screen as she meets his gaze head-on.

 

He waits, a crease etched into his forehead.

 

He’s not quite sure who blinks first, who looks away first.

 

But he’s padding across the room, sinking onto the couch beside Clarke. He watches her lift the remote to click play an episode of _Chuck_ , the volume so low he can barely form words out of the muffled sounds floating from the TV.

 

He’s half asleep before the opening title sequence is even done, already slumped into the back of the couch. Exhaling wearily to himself, he gives up and lets himself drop sideways, his head settling onto Clarke’s blanket-covered lap.

 

The last two things he manages to make out before drifting into slumber are the blurred image of two heads talking on the dimmed screen — one dark, one blonde — and soft fingers raking gently through his still-damp curls.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading yet another part to this fic! i might not be able to publish part 4 for a good couple of weeks. i hope this slightly longer chapter makes up for it a little! 
> 
> if you enjoyed this, feel free to hit kudos or leave me a comment telling me so! thank you so much if you've already done so (ESPECIALLY if it's more than once, and ESPECIALLY x2 if you do so again anyway!). this fic is definitely further out of my comfort zone than my usual writing, so please know that every little bit of feedback really does mean a lot to me. 
> 
> i'm also [on tumblr](http://caramellakers.tumblr.com), come holler at me whenever 'bout whatever! (i am personally REALLY starting to feel this hiatus. oof.)


	4. part iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! this is a couple days later than i hoped it'd be, but i got sidetracked by a few new ideas for other fics. better late than never, i hope!
> 
> enjoy =)

 

 

 

 

 

Over the next two weeks, they slowly, carefully slip back into place.

 

On the way to set, Clarke taps his shoulder and takes the coffee-filled thermos out of his hands right before the stoplight turns green.

 

Bellamy automatically curls a hand around her elbow to pull her around a puddle as they’re headed towards their trailers.

 

She sways into his shoulder as they’re laughing at Miller’s take on the running man, all flailing elbows and knocking knees, one of which accidentally collides with and overturns a floodlight, much to the chagrin of their very disapproving lighting supervisor, Titus.

 

Raven claps a hand to Miller’s slumped shoulder. “To be fair,” she points out, “Titus perpetually looks like he disapproves of everything and everyone.”

 

“I saw him giving a PAR bulb the stink-eye the other day,” Clarke volunteers.

 

“I overheard him lecturing a spotlight once,” Bellamy offers. “Called it by name and everything.”

 

Hours melt into days, days melt into weeks, and Raven stops shooting questioning looks at him whenever Clarke’s back is turned, seemingly satisfied with the current state of things — the re-establishment of equilibrium.

 

Funnily enough, because the universe is never done with singing mockeries at him, ‘equilibrium’ is the last word he would use to describe his current state of being.

 

It’s not new, his awareness of Clarke. He’s always been aware of Clarke. How can he not be? She’s bright sparks and flashing lightning next to him, in front of him, in the same room as him, on or off camera.

 

The thing that’s tilting his entire world off-kilter is a different kind of revelation. A revelation turned inward — a self-awareness.

 

To be more precise, it’s a new awareness of his awareness of Clarke.

 

He relies on her. She relies on him. That much is clear. That much is _required_ , at least, for the roles they’re taking on.

 

But after that night in the tiny, hemmed-in clearing, he can’t help but wonder whether all of it — the need, the passion, the devotion, the pent-up frustration, the conflicting desire to both shake her and kiss her in the same heartbeat — everything he’s accepted and dismissed as his character’s feelings for her character is being completely overturned and disproven. Overturned, disproven, and revealed for what it might actually be.

 

Two sets of feelings for two different people, both embodied by one Clarke Griffin.

 

With each passing day, he feels like he understands his character with a new depth. Something’s shifted sideways in his head, and he’s now able to portray the simmering, smouldering intensity with a fresh, raw sort of empathy — one that Clarke responds to with every fibre of her being, an extra layer of _something_ weighting every word she speaks in front of the camera. Jaha, especially, seems to appreciate him for it, judging from the decreasing number of takes and increasing frequency of approving smiles and nods.

 

At the same time, with each passing day, he understands himself less and less.

 

It’s not just being unable to sort two different sets of emotions out as clearly as he wants to. He feels like he’s taking a swim in the sea, stopped to tread water and suddenly realised he’s so much farther out in the blue-green depths than he’d ever imagined possible. Like he might not even be able to make it back to shore.

 

So he throws himself into work, trying to distract himself from whatever the fuck kind of internal turmoil he’s managed to land himself neck-deep in. Every moment, every second he ups the ante, Clarke responds just the same, without any word or indication of increased exertion, of having to expend more effort to match his.

 

He almost starts to feel sorry for having less and less takes to do.

 

Less takes means less time spent working, and more time hanging around doing nothing on set. More time to just _be_ Bellamy and Clarke.

 

More time for him to silently agonise his way through the alternating flashes of panicked confusion and blind desperation whenever he catches himself laughing with Clarke, or sharing mugs of coffee or tea with Clarke, or playing the ridiculous souped-up version of rock-paper-scissors with Clarke (which they now know was invented by Raven and Jasper).

 

Goddamn. He can’t even take his eyes off her anymore. She could be all the way across the set, deep in discussion with Maya, and he’d practically be a part of the conversation himself for all the attention he’s paying to it from twenty-five feet away.

 

At night, he collapses into his unmade bed, his eyes drifting shut as the veins pulse in his shoulder, right under the spot where, just hours ago, Clarke had absently rested her elbow, leaning her weight into him as they bent over his wrinkled copy of the script, their heads so close that strands of yellow ghosted over the side of his face.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first thing he realises when he drifts into consciousness is that his nose is really fucking _itchy_.

 

He cracks an eye open, and immediately groans, turning to bury his head in his pillow.

 

“Warm welcome,” his sister comments, shoving at his shoulder with the same hand she’d been using to tickle his nose.

 

He rolls over onto his back with the force of her push, shielding his eyes from the sunlight streaming in through his window with one hand. “How did you get in here?”

 

Octavia rolls her eyes, perching on the edge of his bed with a smug grin on her face. “Missed you _too_ , big brother. My flight was great, how’re you?”

 

“I thought you were coming tomorrow,” he tells her, slowly easing himself into a more upright position to reciprocate her hug, no less enthusiastic despite his halfway accusatory tone.

 

“Last couple classes of the week were cancelled,” she responds with a shrug, sitting back and pulling her socked feet up onto his bed to cross them Indian-style.

 

His eyes automatically flick down at the motion, full of warning.

 

“They’re _clean_ ,” she retorts, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Mostly. Are you gonna waste any more time being a useless lump, or can we go get some pancakes? I just argued my way onto a five-hour flight. I need two gallons of maple syrup injected into my bloodstream, like, _now_.”

 

He’s already yanking off his comforter to leave the warmth of his bed with a longsuffering sigh. “This useless lump’s been working non-stop for the last thirty-six hours, so forgive me if I’m not prancing my way out of bed.”

 

She throws a pair of sweatpants at him. “Hurry up. We’re hungry.”

 

“I’m hurrying,” he answers serenely, sticking a hand into his closet and pulling out the first article of clothing he touches. He pauses, turning to frown at his sister. “Who’s ‘we’?”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“And then he turned, and he _glared_ at me, and he said — I _shit_ you _not_ — _‘I won’t be disobeyed, O.’_ Like some kind of fucking Roman emperor!”

 

Clarke laughs so hard she drops her fork with a loud clatter, Octavia still holding her impression of a pissed-off Bellamy, arms folded and chest puffed out with her face drawn, mouth pressed in a disapproving line.

 

“Okay, ha, ha,” he deadpans, adding more pepper to his scrambled eggs. “Wonderful story, O. Real nice.”

 

“What happened to ‘cute’?” Octavia asks unrepentantly, pearly teeth bared in a wolfish grin.

 

“How long exactly has ‘cute’ been a thing for him, anyway?” Clarke asks, leaning toward Octavia with interest.

 

“Since I got old enough to talk back,” she says offhandedly, smirking over at her brother’s narrowed gaze. She turns to roll her eyes exasperatedly at a silently sniggering Clarke. “Which I really can’t be blamed for, if you think about it. What do you expect when you give me a name like ‘Octavia’? By the way,” she says confidentially, bumping her shoulder into Clarke’s, “that’s actually short for ‘Hi-My-Name-Is-Octavia-And-My-Brother-Is-A-Huge-Ancient-History-Nerd’.”

 

“Anyone want more bacon?” Bellamy interrupts loudly, grinning despite himself as he turns to look for a waitress. “I’m getting more bacon. Excuse me!”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“She’s _amazing_ ,” Clarke says as they’re in line at an ice cream truck — the one Jasper used to make everyone stop for whenever they happened to come across it, rain or shine.

 

Bellamy smiles wryly, glancing over to where Octavia’s crouched over by a hedge, playing with a stray cat. “She’s a handful. But sure, that sounds tons better.”

 

Clarke rolls her eyes, the back of her hand landing on his shoulder in a light smack. “You _know_ she’s amazing. It’s kind of obvious,” she tells him, cocking her head nonchalantly. “How proud you are of her, I mean. Your eyes get all soft and crinkly when you look at her. I probably have, like, three new cavities just from seeing it all morning.”

 

He opens and closes his mouth, and finally settles for shaking his head. “Thanks for letting her in, by the way.”

 

“No problem.” Her expression turns apologetic, her nose scrunching as she glances up at him. “Sorry I couldn’t keep her occupied a little longer, though. She was pretty insistent on the pancakes.”

 

“Nah, that’s alright,” he says, ignoring the bubble of warmth expanding in his ribcage that makes him feel now would be a good time to burst into very embarrassing song. Instead, he settles for leaning into her, the length of his arm pressed to hers. “Who sleeps in later than eight A.M. on their day off, anyway?”

 

“Not us,” she snorts, stepping up to the open counter to order.

 

They get a couple of double scoops to share, passing the cups between the three of them until all they can taste is thick sweetness and happiness, no longer quite able to feel their teeth as their lips curl back in laughter.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They spend the rest of the day wandering about town.

 

Octavia is energetic and curious, and she makes them enter just about every store they pass that looks even halfway interesting, much to Clarke’s amusement and Bellamy’s exasperation. Even so, they don’t particularly mind, seeing as their filming schedule doesn’t leave them much free time or energy for anything more ambitious than sleeping, or going out for food, or sprawling out on the couch.

 

The younger Blake seems to especially enjoy thrift stores, perking up whenever they find one and tugging sharply on both their arms. She evidently finds their lagging levels of enthusiasm unsatisfactory, and instantly demands that they all buy at least two ridiculous things before the day is over. "The dumber the better," she says authoritatively, wagging a finger at them both. "And absolutely  _no_ dusty old books. Yes, Bell, that means _you._ " 

 

He settles for a monocle and a Pikachu stuffed toy.

 

Clarke good-naturedly chooses a rhinestone tiara and some kind of frightfully fluffy, chiffon scarf-like garment that looks like it’s been in storage since disco balls went out of style.

 

Octavia acquires a beat-up pocket watch, a purple-feathered boa, a rustically pretty old necklace, an ink stamp that reads _‘BOSS ASS BITCH’_ and one of those joke cameras that squirt water through the fake lens.

 

Two hours into _‘thrift shop hopping’_ (as Octavia calls it), Bellamy finds an old copy of _The Iliad_ in one of the stores and instantly lights up. It’s a pretty early edition, and a much rarer find than he would have expected to come across in a random second-hand store full of pointless junk thrown out after years of being stored away in dusty attics and dank basements.

 

He buys it instantly, much to Octavia's chagrin.

 

"Of _course_ he goes and chooses the oldest, dustiest book in the entire city," she grumbles to Clarke, but the blonde merely grins at him, her features soft and warm, washed over with fond amusement. He's too happy to do much other than grin dopily in response.

 

They already have dinner plans, but Octavia insists on cooking for them the following night. They stop by the grocery store on their way home to pick up ingredients — the bigger one that’s an extra block away, the one they can never be bothered to summon up the energy to visit even though it carries more than four types of cereal.

 

Bellamy gripes all throughout grocery shopping, but Clarke smiles at him like she knows he’s only worried about making his sister feel like it’s her responsibility to cook dinner for the entire apartment just because they don’t always eat their vegetables or whatever.

 

“ _Someone_ should put that kitchen to use while you’re here,” Octavia points out, peering at slabs of frozen meat laid out in neat rows. “For the last time, the microwave doesn’t _count_ , Bell.”

 

Raven and Miller return from set right before it starts to get dark.

 

Despite their obvious exhaustion, both their roommates rally instantly with wide smiles when Bellamy introduces them to Octavia, offering up jaunty handshakes and amiable embraces. Raven wastes no time in demanding an explanation as to why the _‘better-looking Blake’_ isn’t the one _‘putting their face on camera for a living’_.

 

Twenty-five minutes later, everyone is showered and changed and ready to go to dinner. They trundle out to a nearby bistro, and order steak and grilled chicken and cheesy pasta and wine and beer and spend an hour and a half egging Octavia to cough up more embarrassing Bellamy-centric stories.

 

Everyone’s having a great time, but they don’t linger for long. Raven and Miller are worn out from work, and Octavia’s starting to slip from her excitable high, too, fatigued from a day of travel and exploration.

 

They head home, and say goodnight with loopy grins, everyone’s eyes already half-closed before they even get in the front door.

 

Bellamy gets his sister a change of clothes to sleep in, dropping a quick peck onto the top of her drooping head before heading back to the living room. He and Clarke flop down onto the couch for a nightcap, going through their ridiculous thrift store purchases as _Chuck_ plays in the background.

 

He loops her chiffon scarf around his neck, and she throws Octavia’s purple boa around her shoulders and snaps a couple pictures of them, him with his stuffed Pikachu clutched to his chest, and her with her rhinestone tiara sitting askew on her head.

 

When their giggles die down, they’re still leaning into each other, shoulders pressed together despite the large couch. He knows the unnecessary contact isn’t helping at all with clearing his head, but he’s too drunk to remember to care all that much — a little on beer, but mostly on the high of the last fourteen or so hours.

 

She picks up the ancient copy of _The Iliad_ , opening it carefully and turning its pages with a gentle reverence.

 

“I’ve never read it,” she confesses after a long moment, looking up to see his eyes already on her, still crinkled with laughter.

 

“Go ahead,” he says, grinning lopsidedly.

 

“Wow,” she comments, raising a facetious brow. “You sure? Are you really letting me borrow a piece of your soul right now? What’s the timeframe on loans for a Bellamy Blake Horcrux?”

 

He snorts despite himself, letting himself slump further down onto the couch, one hand absently curling into the hem of his T-shirt. “No timeframe on _gifts_ , Clarke. Seriously, take it.” He squints up at her playfully, head tipping towards her so his inky black curls brush against her shoulder. “Full disclosure — I already have, like, three other copies.”

 

She laughs, shaking her head to the empty room before turning back to him. Her blue eyes narrow at him, full of jesting suspicion. “No take backs, Blake. Not even for Sober Bellamy.”

 

The pleasant haze clears from his head, and his hand stills on his belly. The halcyon haze clears from his vision, his gaze heavy on her face. “No take backs,” he agrees, his voice low and rough.

 

A door creaks open suddenly, and they both tear away to look up at Miller plodding into the living room, eyes still closed.

 

He blinks once at their chiffon and feathered accessories, Clarke’s tiara reflecting the blue-toned light of the TV.

 

“Man. Gotta stop overeating before bed,” he half-slurs, and turns back to plod back down the hallway and into his room, closing the door with a small snick.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day, they sleep in extra late and get Indian food delivered in for lunch.

 

Octavia spends nearly an hour quizzing Clarke about how she got into acting. Bellamy rolls his eyes at his sister’s inquisitive prodding, but relaxes when Clarke flashes him a reassuring grin and the slightest of nods. The younger girl seems especially enamoured to hear about Clarke dropping out of pre-med and moving across the country with almost no support from her disapproving U.S. Senator of a mother.

 

They spend hours and hours watching B-grade action movies and playing cards.

 

Octavia gets rather worked up when Bellamy offhandedly mentions Clarke’s artistic ability, and immediately asks to see her stuff, practically bouncing in her seat with excitement while Clarke sheepishly returns from her room with her accordingly fetched sketchpad. The younger Blake goes uncharacteristically silent when she opens it, flipping slowly through the delicately decorated pages for a good five minutes before looking up at Clarke, awed admiration splashed all over her face.

 

Raven and Miller drift in and out of the living room in between catching up on lost sleep, dropping onto the couch with a yawn, a plate of Indian takeout and a snarky remark or two.

 

Miller stays for most of the second half of _Transformers_ , but falls asleep again before the end credits start to roll. Raven collapses onto the couch, a mug of tea in her hands and her head on Clarke’s shoulder, and provides entertaining commentary throughout three rounds of cards.

 

Right when the end credits start to roll on _Die Hard_ , Octavia hops up and announces that she’s going to get started on dinner.

 

Clarke automatically starts to follow her, offering help, but Octavia stops her in her tracks, one warning finger held up to the blonde.

 

“ _I_ offered to cook dinner, Clarke,” she says dismissively, waving off the blonde’s protests. “So _I’ll_ cook it. You just relax, and prepare to be amazed. Besides, my brother is more than happy to help.”

 

Bellamy raises a brow from the other end of the L-shaped couch, comfortably sprawled out on his back over the well-worn leather. “I am?”

 

“Yes, you are,” his sister informs him, hands on her hips. She whirls sharply on his blank expression, snapping her fingers at him over her shoulder. “ _Now_ , Bell!” she calls as she disappears into the kitchen.

 

Clarke sniggers gently as he heaves a resigned sigh and pulls himself upright, all rumpled black curls and crinkled white cotton.

 

“Shut up,” he says good-naturedly, tossing the remote at her. “Show some goddamn sympathy.”

 

She catches it easily, grinning up at him. “I am. This is my sympathy face. This is my sympathy laugh.” She points at him mockingly, eyes bright with amusement. “Ha, ha… _ha_.”

 

“Cute,” he says, reaching out to tug on her messy braid as he passes her by, stray strands of soft yellow brushing over his hand.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“So,” Octavia says, once he’s chopped up the carrots to her satisfaction, eyes gleaming at him over a pot of simmering water. “Clarke.”

 

He glances at her, hands busy with washing two heads of broccoli. “Is this some weird name game you’re starting? Is it my turn?”

 

To his surprise, his sister doesn’t even roll her eyes — though they do narrow on him, pointedly and acutely. “Please tell me you know you’re in love with her.”

 

His hands still under the tap, running water gushing over the thick green stalks. His mouth is dry, and he has to swallow to get it working again. He clears his throat as subtly and soundlessly as he can manage, feeling it tighten uncomfortably. “What do you mean?”

 

Octavia huffs, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees her fold her arms across her middle staunchly. “Are you _actually_ kidding me right now?”

 

He runs a hand over the bushy broccoli heads one last time, even though he’s pretty sure they’re the cleanest things in the entire building at this point. “It’s a basic clarification question, O.”

 

“Two things,” Octavia says, an unyielding edge to her voice. “One — no one answers a _basic_ question with ‘what do you mean’ when they could just say ‘no’. And two — you’re my _brother_ , Bell. You don’t get to do this with me.”

 

“Do what,” he replies, making a half-hearted attempt at sounding irritable instead of defensive as he shuts off the water.

 

“ _This_ ,” she says, gesturing between them with one hand. “Call ‘action’. Play a fucking character. _Act_.”

 

He sighs, setting the vegetables down on the chopping board and picking up the knife. “It’s not that simple, O.”

 

“The hell it isn’t,” she retorts, taking a step forward. “Why haven’t you _told_ her? Why didn’t you tell _me_? Five months of living together and you couldn’t maybe _mention_ it, not even once?”

 

He drops the knife before it’s even made contact with the broccoli, stepping back from the counter to draw a shaky breath. “This is not about you, Octavia.”

 

“You’re right,” she agrees hotly, yanking her arms free to plant them on her hips. “This is about you, and her, and you haven’t done a damn thing about it because you’re _scared_ , aren’t you!”

 

“You’re damn right I am,” he snaps back, a prickling flush creeping its way up his heaving chest. “I _am_ , because you know what? It’s not just _me_ , it’s this other guy I’m supposed to be half the time, and it’s not just _her_ , it’s this other girl she’s supposed to be _while_ I’m pretending to be this other guy and I’m fucking _terrified_ , okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

 

Silence swoops in once he’s finished, almost as if to cut him off.

 

He stares at her, reeling from his own outburst. It takes him a good five seconds to realise how heavily he’s breathing.

 

He suddenly feels hollow in the strangest way — as if he’s been ripped wide open, bones stripped bare.

 

She looks at him, eyes going round as they roam over his face. Her hands drop from her sides, the hard line of her shoulders melting into something almost gentle. “Oh, Bell,” she says softly, gaze securely trained on him. “Is this what’s been eating you up?”

 

He exhales, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I— I feel like I don’t even know the fucking difference anymore. I can’t even _tell_ — me and Clarke, or—” He cuts himself off, taking a step so he can brace his hands on the edge of the counter.

 

Almost a full minute passes, and he can feel his sister’s frowning gaze on him the entire time. He stares down at the eggshell white surface of the counter, watching his fingers clench and unclench on the hard, rounded edge as he tries to slow his racing heart by sheer force of will.

 

He hears Octavia sigh, and the steady pad of her feet against the kitchen floor as she comes up next to him. “I’ll tell you what the difference is,” she says, quiet and a lot more calm than he would have expected. “The difference is, you’re real. You and Clarke, you’re both _real_.”

 

“We’ve spent the better part of a year _making_ these characters real, O,” he says dully, staring at his knuckles. “I don’t think I know how to turn it off. I don’t even know if I can.”

 

A small hand comes to cover his on the counter. He tears his eyes away from the sight of her fingers closed over his, looking up to meet his sister’s fierce emerald gaze.

 

“You love her,” she says simply. “If you don’t want to screw that up, then you don’t get to do that with her, either.”

 

He blinks, arrested by the firmness in his baby sister’s eyes, twin green orbs of steady ground. “Do what?” he manages weakly.

 

She shrugs, the corners of her mouth pulling up in a sympathetic half-smile. “Act.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

At the first taste of Octavia’s expertly grilled pork chops melting into their mouths, a collective hum of appreciation rises from the table.

 

Miller’s eyes fall shut, his fist pressed to his mouth, and Bellamy’s seventy-eight percent sure that he has actual tears in his eyes.

 

Raven slams a fist onto the table, and immediately orders Octavia to cancel her flight home and officially move into the apartment.

 

Clarke grins and cheerfully concedes that it’s _‘most definitely better than any microwave could do’_.

 

Octavia rolls her eyes, but a telltale flush spreads across her cheeks, emphasised by her pleased grin. “Everyone shut up and eat your greens. That goes for you too, Miller,” she says, jabbing her fork in his direction. “No chocolate fudge pie for you otherwise.”

 

“Chocolate—” Raven repeats sharply, dropping her fork onto her plate with a loud clang.

 

“Are you an actual angel?” Miller asks, mouth half-full of pork and jaw slackened in utter reverence.

 

Bellamy smiles and laughs with the table, but no matter how much beer he drinks, his mouth is too dry to appreciate the full spectrum of lovingly assembled herb seasonings and freshly grilled meat.

 

He tries his best to keep up with the performance all throughout dinner, but he can’t help it. He suddenly finds himself unable to laugh at Clarke’s jokes, to look Clarke in the eye, to look _at_ Clarke.

 

Raven and Miller are too excited to notice, caught up on piping hot pork chops and malted hops.

 

Octavia is too absorbed with the proceedings, laughing every ten seconds and fetching more beers and rolling her eyes at Raven’s increasingly urgent pleas to stay and authoritatively prodding Miller into taking a second helping of vegetables.

 

He feels the weight of Clarke’s gaze on him, and forces himself to laugh at Raven’s snarky crack about _‘of course Octavia’s good with handling pig, look who brought her up — HELLO’_ even though he isn’t paying nearly enough attention to even register what she’s saying.

 

He fully expects his sister to corner Clarke after dinner and proceed to thoroughly embarrass him in a well-meaning attempt to protect him or help him or whatever the fuck it is she thinks she can do by sheer force of stubborn will, but all she does is flop down onto the couch beside him, throwing a hand over her stuffed belly.

 

Raven announces that she’s going to help Clarke with the dishes, and rolls her eyes when Miller offers to lend them a hand but makes no move to get up. “ _Please_ ,” she scoffs, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder as she heads for the kitchen. “You’re really only patronising yourself, _Nathan_.”

 

Octavia laughs and pokes Miller in the arm with her big toe before reaching out to swipe the remote from Bellamy and scroll furiously through film categories on Netflix, way too lightning fast for anyone else to keep up.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They’re nearly halfway into _The Princess Bride_ by the time Clarke and Raven emerge from the kitchen.

 

Bellamy frowns, unable to stop from noticing how half-hearted and strained their smiles seem, or the lingering hint of redness around Clarke’s nose and eyes. They can’t possibly have had a joint, because for some reason, that shit stinks up the entire apartment quicker than he can spell ‘stoned’. It’s why he enforces a strict no-smoking policy.

 

(It really only affects him and Miller, but they do bring out the occasional blunt — usually at the end of particularly harried workweeks. Raven grumbles incessantly every time the four of them crowd together on the narrow fire escape to trade roll-ups, but no one pays much attention either way when she’s already leaning companionably into their side or resting her elbow nonchalantly on their shoulder. After six months together, it’s far too easy to tell the difference between Genuinely-Annoyed Raven and Acting-Annoyed-Because-God-Forbid-I-Look-Like-I’m-Enjoying-People-Too-Much Raven.)

 

So it’s not weed. Maybe they opened up another bottle of wine?

 

Clarke disappears down the hallway and into the bathroom, while Raven collapses onto the empty armchair, swinging both legs over one arm. “Inconceivable!” she chimes cheerfully, even though Vizzini’s already died several scenes ago.

 

He clenches and unclenches his fingers over the neck of his nearly empty beer bottle. He’s suddenly finding himself _even_ more unable to pay attention to the movie than he was before, while the two girls had sequestered themselves in the kitchen.

 

He’s just on the verge of giving up, already taking a bracing breath to push up off the couch and retreat to his room or the kitchen or _something_ when he hears the sound of water running and the distinct creak of the bathroom door opening.

 

“Someone tell me I haven’t missed the Fire Swamp,” Clarke says as she reenters the living room, a hand raking through her tousled blonde waves as she settles onto the opposite end of the couch.

 

It’s really only Octavia and Miller in between them — but somehow, it feels like whole crowds have parted them.

 

He jumps up when Miller announces he’s heading to bed, escaping to his room without meeting Octavia’s sharp gaze.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Bellamy hasn’t been sleeping well, not since that night it had been just him and Clarke and a tiny clearing and a steady, thin stream of rain.

 

He wakes up every two hours or so. Sometimes it’s in a small panic, shoulders jerking and limbs flailing as he springs upright in a tangle of sheets. Sometimes his eyes just slide open, the rest of him already submerged in knowing despair.

 

It’s always with a vision of blonde hair and blue eyes seared into his brain.

 

It’s better when they’ve got days off. He can usually go an hour or two longer before he’s yanked from unconsciousness, and it’s easier to fall back asleep when he’s not worrying about being punctual to work on top of everything else.

 

This time, he wakes right when the sun’s still climbing its way up the sky, and he immediately sits up when he realises that his sister’s side of the bed is empty.

 

He pulls on a T-shirt and pads out of his room, roughly rubbing at his heavy eyelids with the heel of a palm. The living room is empty, and he moves towards the kitchen, weighing the odds of Octavia having wandered out of the apartment for a run or a walk or, he doesn’t know, to pick up supplies to bake a fucking apple crumble or something at five-thirty in the morning.

 

He sets one foot in the kitchen and pulls up short, blinking hazily at the sight of his sister and Raven at the large island in the centre, each arching a brow at him over steaming mugs.

 

“I thought you were making crumble,” he blurts out.

 

Okay, there’s maybe a twelve percent chance that he’s still sleepwalking.

 

Octavia frowns at him. “Did you _want_ crumble?”

 

“There’s leftover fudge pie in the fridge,” Raven supplies helpfully. “Don’t touch the container marked ‘Miller’, though. I’m stealing that for dinner.”

 

He blinks again, and shakes his head in an attempt to clear it. “I’m good. Is that hot chocolate?”

 

“Yes, it is,” Octavia informs him, already up and moving to the stove to get the burner going, a small saucepan already on it. “Hand me a cup if you want some.”

 

He obeys her automatically, casting a bewildered glance at Raven along the way. Where did his sister find the time to make hot chocolate _from scratch_? “How long have you guys been up?”

 

“My morning flight got cancelled,” Octavia explains, one hand stirring the thick dark liquid in the saucepan. “So I kicked up a huge fuss and got transferred to a red-eye.”

 

“You’re driving me and Miller to set, by the way,” Raven adds, sipping from her mug.

 

He raises a brow at her. “I am?”

 

“Your sister wants to visit the set,” she says, grinning at him. “So unless you want her to hitchhike back here, then yes, you are.”

 

He turns to Octavia, mouth falling open in incredulity.

 

She presses a mug of chocolate into his hands, the aroma already wafting into his nostrils. “We leave in forty-five minutes.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  

Of course, absolutely everyone loves Octavia.

 

She wins Kane’s heart in about five seconds flat, and he grins after her when she bounds off after Raven with her visitor’s pass dangling from one hand, a very dopey sort of fatherly pride etched all over his face.

 

She sends Maya into stitches with some story about two of the puppies in her pet shelter, showing the giggling writer picture after picture on her phone.

 

She throws question after question at Anya, fingering fabrics and jackets and pointing out designs with even more questions. The fierce costumer _smiles_ at her by the time Raven and Miller are fully dressed and ready to head to set, much to Bellamy’s awe and a little to his sense of fear.

 

“She’s never done that before,” Bellamy tells her ruefully as they accompany Raven and Miller out of their trailer.

 

Octavia shrugs carelessly. “Maybe you guys haven’t ever done anything to deserve it.”

 

When they arrive, Jaha is wrapped up in an intense discussion with their script supervisor, Callie. Bellamy decides to leave off introducing him to Octavia, and ushers his sister into the canvas chair set up beside his — Clarke’s chair, he doesn’t escape noticing.

 

She climbs into it, and proceeds to pay rapturous attention to Raven and Miller as they work for the next hour or so.

 

When Jaha calls the first break, Jackson finds Bellamy, and they chat for a bit, going over a few minor details about his upcoming scenes. The other man excuses himself after a few minutes, and Bellamy turns to his left to find Octavia’s chair empty.

 

A quick look round the set finds her by the B-camera, leaning in to smile up at the first AD, Lincoln.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says when he reaches them.

 

Octavia frowns at him. “For what?”

 

“For whatever she’s already said,” Bellamy says, dodging the punch his sister instantly throws his way.

 

Lincoln seems to notice Bellamy for the first time, blinking at him like he’s just stepped out into the sun after a long stretch indoors. “Nothing to be sorry about,” the AD says smoothly, straightening in a move that’s almost _smart_ in its manner.

 

Octavia elbows Bellamy, hard. “Yeah, Bell. All I wanted to know was if there’s a designated hook-up spot on set,” she says with a toss of her hair.

 

Bellamy startles, glancing wide-eyed at her and back at Lincoln. “What the hell for?”

 

She rolls her eyes, seemingly unaware of the way Lincoln is still looking down at her, his large frame quietly glowing with admiration. “Come on, Bell. You expect me to believe Murphy and Emori go entire days at work without jumping each other?”

 

Bellamy stares down at his sister, mouth now fully open. “How did you—” He stops, and shakes his head. Don’t ask questions he doesn’t want to know the answers to, he reminds himself.

 

“Well,” he tries again, raking a hand through his unruly curls, “unless you’re looking to get some personal use out of that information, do you really think it’s the best idea to bother Lincoln with it?”

 

She huffs impatiently then, planting one hand on her hip and the other on Lincoln’s bicep. “Fine, you caught me. I was totally looking for a place to drag Lincoln off to for a make out session, okay? Busted.”

 

“Cute,” he replies flatly, placing a hand on her shoulder to steer her away from the AD, who’s looking far too pleased with the notion for his comfort. “Sorry, man,” he says to Lincoln as he pulls Octavia back to their seats.

 

“I’ll call you!” Octavia says over her shoulder, teeth bared in a wolfish grin.

 

“You don’t even have his number,” Bellamy points out grumpily as they settle back into their chairs.

 

His sister waves a slender hand. “Details,” she says dismissively. “Hey, is Jaha straight? ’Cause I’m getting major _vibes_.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They head to a bowling alley after the second break to kill time while they wait for Raven and Miller to wrap for the day.

 

They lace up their rented shoes, wince and wiggle their toes in the disposable socks sold for fifty cents a pair over the counter, and spend an unnecessary twenty minutes choosing their balls.

 

They communicate almost exclusively in immature trash talk and teasing jabs, and tiptoe around trying to muck up each other’s turns at the lane.

 

Bellamy buys a large cardboard container of chilli cheese fries from the snack bar after their second game, and cracks a stupid joke that makes Octavia snort so hard she nearly chokes on the extra jalapeños she’d yelled across the alley for him to get, and has to chug soda to get the flaring heat out of her nose.

 

It kind of feels like being a kid again, and it sort of makes him feel like everything’s okay again, even if it’s just for a few hours.

 

They lapse into a momentary silence, listening to the crash and clatter of pins and balls colliding in other lanes. Octavia crunches thoughtfully on an ice cube, one leg pulled up under her and the other swinging lazy arcs as it dangles off her seat.

 

“What does Clarke do on days off?” she asks after a few moments, picking up one of the last few fries and dragging it through the remains of the chilli sauce.

 

He leans back in his chair, aimlessly tapping the half-empty water bottle he’d bought from the snack bar on his knee. “We usually watch TV. Run lines. Order takeout. Go out and buy takeout.”

 

“That’s it?” Octavia asks, a dubious crease etched into her forehead.

 

Bellamy shrugs. “We started up Miller’s PlayStation once, but it turns out we both kind of hate _Call of Duty_.”

 

His sister is watching him, silent but not suspicious. There’s a contemplative quality to her expression that’s not entirely unfamiliar to him, but still not one he’s entirely accustomed to seeing on her.

 

“I didn’t realise you felt that way about _Call of Duty_ ,” he jokes after a long silence, nudging her leg with his plastic bottle. “We’ll give it another shot if it matters that much to you.”

 

She rolls her eyes a little — the motion slight but enough to make her exasperation clear — before resuming her thoughtful expression. “You guys— you guys don’t _do_ anything.”

 

He raises a brow, stilling the tapping of the bottle against his knee. “Okay. Uh. Sorry?”

 

She shakes her head. “I mean, you two just— You don’t _do_ anything. You spend all that time together, and you don’t _need_ anything else _._ ” Her gaze lands squarely on his. “It’s kind of amazing.”

 

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, unsure why he suddenly feels like the sibling roles have been reversed. “Anyone can watch TV, O.” He flashes a half-grin. “It’s literally _designed_ for mindless consumption.”

 

Octavia doesn’t rise to the bait. “You have no idea what you’ve even _got_ , do you?”

 

He doesn’t know how to respond to that.

 

So he doesn’t.

 

He waits, blinking uncomprehendingly at his denim-clad knee.

 

“Atom and I always had a plan,” she says suddenly.

 

He glances up in surprise. His sister has rarely talked about her first and only serious relationship ever since it ended three years ago, except to exasperatedly assure him for the millionth time that he isn’t required to seek anyone out and break their face in.

 

“We went out on proper dates,” she continues, looking down at her soda straw as her fingers play with the plastic tube. “He took me to dinner. We had picnics. We went to shows and hung out with friends and bought tickets to fun stuff.”

 

He stays silent, watching his sister’s downturned head warily. He doesn’t care how long it’s been; if he needs to break someone’s face in, he’ll do it.

 

She sighs, meeting his gaze. “Do you have any idea how rare it is to find someone you can just _be_ with? You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to go anywhere — you can just _be_ with them, doing absolutely _nothing_. Like— like that’s _enough_.”

 

He stares at her, a little shell-shocked.

 

Octavia flicks at the end of her straw. “I’m not saying I’d give up _anything_ to have that. I haven’t lived enough of my life to decide something like that. But, fuck, Bell—” she looks up, eyes shining bright with earnest sincerity, “—if I did, by some crazy miracle, somehow manage to find that? I don’t think I’d be able to let that pass me by. Not without a fight.”

 

He sits in silence, struggling to digest it all.

 

The dim clamour of the alley washes over them both, a mess of colliding pins and muffled chatter and the low rumble of lane machines.

 

Octavia exhales, and jumps to her feet, holding out a hand to him.

 

“Come on, big brother,” she announces. “I’ll kick your ass one more time, and then we can go get your roommates.”

 

The smile on his face is pure impulse, and he grasps her hand to pull himself up. “I feel like now’s as good a time as any to let you know that I’ve been holding back this entire time, O.”

 

She scoffs, tapping at the electronic screen to clear the board for a new game. “Me too, dumbass. Ladies first, which means you’re up.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Octavia waves off every single one of his attempts to offer her a ride to the airport.

 

“You’ve a fucking six A.M. call-time, idiot,” she reminds him, waving her makeup bag at him before throwing it into her small suitcase and zipping the whole thing up. “Cabs exist, FYI. Just walk me down to the road and bid me a tearful goodbye, like a normal person.”

 

She doesn’t let them wake Miller up when it’s time for her to leave. He’s fallen asleep while waiting on the couch, TV remote resting on his chest and blanketed by one hand.

 

“Let him rest,” Octavia says with a hand on Raven’s arm. “I left the rest of the chocolate in the fridge, okay? Heat it up properly when you want it.”

 

Bellamy carries her suitcase in and out of the elevator for her, while she chatters on a mile a minute to Clarke and Raven.

 

She pauses once they reach the sidewalk, and throws her arms around Raven.

 

“Shove some greens into Miller’s mouth for me, will you?” she says into the other girl’s hair.

 

Raven laughs and releases her, wide grin in place. “Do you even have to ask?”

 

Bellamy’s significantly thrown when his sister steps up to him next, flinging her arms around his neck.

 

“You better fight, big brother,” she breathes into his ear, arms tightening around him. “Fight like hell.”

 

He squeezes her small frame to him, suddenly even more reluctant to say goodbye. “Love you, O.”

 

She presses her lips to his cheek before stepping back. She’s grinning up at him, a slight sheen in her piercing green eyes. “Love you, Bell.”

 

He watches, a little bewildered as she turns to Clarke, standing on Raven’s other side, and wraps the blonde in a hug.

 

It’s way too dark out, and his sister’s back is to him, so he doesn’t actually see her mouth moving. But from the furrow of Clarke’s brows and the way Octavia angles her face towards his co-star’s ear, he knows she’s saying something, purposely keeping her voice down so no one else will hear.

 

A few long seconds later, Octavia finally pulls back from Clarke. Bellamy watches closely as the blonde meets his sister’s gaze, and, smiling softly (if a little unsteadily), nods once.

 

Octavia steps towards him, snagging the handle of her suitcase from his grip.

 

“Later, ’gators,” she announces, flashing a blinding grin before sticking her arm out.

 

A cab pulls up almost immediately, and he has to marvel at the wonder, the sheer force of Octavia’s charisma as she throws her bag into the backseat and jumps in after it, turning to wave at them through the window. Maybe Raven’s right; she should’ve been the one putting herself in the spotlight for a living.

 

They watch the cab drive off into the distance, all three of them heaving a small sigh once it turns the corner and disappears from view.

 

Raven nudges him with an elbow. “Guess we’re back down to just the sub-par Blake.”

 

“You’re sub-par,” he answers half-heartedly, tearing his eyes away from the road to exchange lazy grins with her.

 

He looks to Clarke, throwing her a questioning frown, a silent question about what just transpired between her and his sister.

 

But she’s already tripping back towards their building, shoulder to shoulder with Raven and murmuring quietly about hot chocolate and fudge pie.

 

She doesn’t meet his eye all throughout the elevator ride back up, and all throughout mugs of hot chocolate and _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ on the couch.

 

One hour later, he drops into his bed, sighs deeply into his pillow, and tries to dislodge the unsettling feeling that it’s going to be a very, very long week ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading through yet another chapter of this! i am planning for the next chapter to be the last, but honestly, anything could happen. 
> 
> if you're enjoying the fic so far, a kudos or comment would really make my day and go a long way towards letting me know that you are indeed enjoying it!  
> thank you so much if you've already done either one! we're only allowed one kudos, but feel free to leave as many comments as you like =) i would absolutely love to hear what you think, it truly is REALLY helpful to me! 
> 
> come say hi [on tumblr](http://caramellakers.tumblr.com)! anytime, anywhere =D


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